Russell Trood (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Governments have obligations. There are no obligations more important to governments than to maintain the sanctity of borders. Nothing is more important to any government than ensuring its border integrity. Far from being trivial on this matter, we in the opposition regard the maintenance of Australia’s border sanctity as one of the most important issues that a government has to confront. It is the first responsibility of every government and it is this responsibility that this government, the Rudd government, has completely failed to give attention to.

Our territorial sovereignty is under constant challenge from people smugglers and asylum seekers. The numbers are incontrovertible. Senator Bilyk seems to be in denial about the challenge we face. In 2008, from August there were seven boats. In 2009, the number went up to 61. Already in 2010 the figure is 24. Just looking at 2009, in that year the 61 boats that arrived were carrying 2,792 people. This year, so far 24 boats have arrived carrying 1,191 people—a total since August 2008, as Senator Humphries said, of 92 boats carrying 4,162 people.

There is a debate about the reasons for this. There are many different perspectives held by those in this debate, and they offer different explanations as to why this is the case. I am one of those who believe that this is a complex matter, that there is a range of reasons why the boats keep coming, but at the very least there is a plausible argument that ALP policy is an important contributing factor. The argument for that position is not just plausible. There is in fact a direct correlation between the changes in the Rudd government’s policy on this issue and the increase in the number of boats arriving over this two-year period. The numbers have increased while the Rudd government has liberalised its policies.

What are we to make of this? Rational people are entitled to draw rational conclusions about the nature of this connection between the easing of policy and the number of people who have come to Australia over that time. The government’s response is to be in absolute denial about this proposition. The government absolutely denies and cannot accept any relationship between the easing of its policy and the changes in the incidence of arrivals. If we were to accept the trend—which is unmistakable—and to project it from 2010, with 24 arrivals already this year, by the end of 2010 there would be in the vicinity of 96 boats and 4,764 people, according to my calculations. That is the trend. Of course, events might intervene—the numbers might not be that high or that low—but that is the trend which the government seems completely unable to acknowledge. It refuses to acknowledge the relationship between these two events.

It seems very clear to me that denial and refusal lead to bad policy. An inability to acknowledge the correlation between these factors leads consistently to bad policy. If I had a couple of hours—and I do not, sadly—I could outline the wide range of the shortcomings of these policies, but let me just pick up on a couple of matters. Senator Bilyk referred to the detention centre that the coalition built whilst we were in office. Why did we build it? We built it in preparation. We built not in the expectation that it would soon be filled but because we were concerned to ensure that Australia was put into a position where, should it be necessary, we would be able to deal with this challenge. The Labor government has failed completely to deal with the challenge of the increasing number of people who might come to our shores over the next six, nine or 12 months or even longer. When the minister is pressed about what will happen if the Christmas Island detention centre is full, he says, ‘I will send them off to Darwin perhaps.’ The reason that is a possibility, of course, is that we also recognise that we might need the facilities in Darwin for future policy contingencies.

The point is that the Rudd government, having been in denial about this problem, has done nothing. It has failed to turn its mind to the possibility that those projections that I mentioned are accurate, that there will be more asylum seekers, that the heinous people smugglers will ply their trade very successfully and that we will need more accommodation for these people. The Rudd government has to face up to the reality of the shortcomings of its policies. It has to face up to the reality of its policies not only with regard to detention centres but also with regard to Indonesia. Everybody who is concerned about this issue—everybody who pays serious attention to the people-smuggling problem—recognises that Indonesia is part of the solution. Yet from the very beginning the Rudd government seems to have been absolutely determined to humiliate Indonesia for its management of this issue. It did so over the Oceanic Viking, on which the Indonesians were forced into taking a position, and as we stand here today the Jaya Lestari remains in the port of Merak with 240 people on board. It has been there for four months and there is no solution in sight to the plight of those people on board.

In the mind of the Rudd government, it is a problem for the Indonesian government. During estimates, it was quite clear that the Rudd government had washed its hands of the whole problem, having in the first place asked the Indonesian government to tow this ship into Indonesian waters and do us a favour by protecting it from the dangers of the high seas. Indonesia did that favour for us, but we have left it with a problem that it is unable to address unless we provide some kind of assistance, and we absolutely refuse to do so. In estimates, Mr Woolcott, who was then the people-smuggling ambassador, said:

… it is a matter for Indonesia to find a way to get the passengers from the Merak boat to end this embargo.

It seems unwilling to take that course. (Time expired)