Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The opposition have their assessment of the Rudd government’s border protection policy just plain wrong. Why have they got it so wrong? It is because they have chosen to be blinkered when it comes to the truth about the number of boat arrivals; it is because they choose to use scare tactics instead of the facts in this debate; and it is because they choose to ignore the fact that the Rudd Labor government is hard at work protecting our borders and strengthening Australia’s people-smuggling laws. So let’s look at the facts about the Rudd Labor government and border protection. Fact 1: the highest number of boat arrivals on record occurred when the Howard government was in office. That record was set in 2001. In that year, more than 5,000 people arrived in 43 boats. Fact 2: the second-highest number of people arriving in boats was in 1999, also under the Howard Liberal government. In that year, 3,721 people arrived by boat. Fact 3: the third-highest number of boat arrivals was in 2000, also under the Howard government, when 2939 people arrived. When we cut out the scare tactics, these are the real facts.

The United Nations refugee agency, the UNHCR, has reported that there were 42 million displaced persons worldwide at the end of 2008, including more than 15 million refugees. Naturally, these displaced people are looking for stable places to resettle. They are looking for somewhere stable to resettle because of the troubled state of their home countries, not because of our immigration policies. There are good reasons for reaching this conclusion. When boat arrivals were at their height in the Howard era, the main source countries were Afghanistan and Iraq; now the main source countries are Afghanistan and Sri Lanka. Why Iraq then and Sri Lanka now? This change in source countries points to changes in the domestic conditions in those source countries. This is what is driving changes to boat arrivals; it is not changes in our immigration policies.

You can see that our immigration policies are not driving arrivals from the fact that other developed nations, with a range of different immigration policies, are facing the same issues of refugees fleeing and seeking asylum within their borders. For example, there have been increases in the number of asylum claims in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Norway and Poland. This is a global problem. To pretend otherwise is misguided and misleading, and that leads to misguided policies. Fortunately, the Rudd government understands this, and that means we are in a better position to address it, unlike the opposition. We know that, because of their vulnerability, displaced people are targeted by and fall prey to people smugglers. The Rudd government is very aware of the fact that the abhorrent practice of people-smuggling is both a global and a regional problem, and we are acting accordingly.

So, once again, look at the facts. Fact: the Rudd Labor government has increased border protection resources for our country. Fact: the Australian government has committed more than $654 million to implementing a comprehensive people-smuggling strategy. Fact: the Australian government is working with our regional neighbours to identify, deter, prevent, intercept and prosecute people smugglers. Here are examples of our comprehensive and well-targeted border protection policy implementation. First, the Australian Federal Police, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Department of Immigration and Citizenship and the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service have increased their presence in our region by recently setting up and expanding liaison posts devoted to deterring irregular migration. Second, agencies are working closely with their counterparts in other countries, exchanging and gathering information and strengthening our regional capacity to mitigate irregular migration to Australia. Third, our regional approach was boosted last week when our government and the Indonesian government adopted an Implementation Framework for Cooperation to Combat People Smuggling and Trafficking in Persons. The framework, developed under the Lombok Treaty Plan of Action, reflects the cooperation between the two governments as co-chairs of the Bali Process, as well as the 2006 bilateral MOU on migration and border control management. This cooperation involves law enforcement and other agencies working together to prevent, disrupt and bring to justice people smugglers and people traffickers. Fourth, the Rudd government is doing even more to strengthen our border protection policies. You can see this from the fact that, just two weeks ago, the Attorney-General introduced a bill to amend our anti-people-smuggling legislation framework. This will allow the harmonisation of existing offences between acts, create new people-smuggling offences, improve investigative tools and extend penalties for those convicted of people-smuggling offences. This is in addition to the vigilant and visible aerial, land and sea based patrols that are already very effective. Our strengthened offshore approach is working.

Since September 2008 there have been 102 disruptions of people-smuggling ventures in Indonesia and the arrest of 54 people-smuggling organisers. I am proud of the fact that the Rudd government has ended the inhumane practices of the Howard government such as keeping children in detention and temporary protection visas. We have done this in favour of a whole-of-government strategy to combat people smuggling and address the problem of unauthorised arrivals. This means that finally we have a real plan and a commitment to strengthening our borders. This is instead of the Liberal government’s approach. Frankly, I do not think the Howard government cared about the number of asylum seekers arriving, providing it could vilify them and score political points. Labor’s approach is working. However, the simple fact is that, while there is conflict and instability in the world and people face violence, conflict and persecution in their own countries, we will continue to need to work hard as a nation to address this problem, no matter who is in power. The difference is that Rudd Labor is actually committed to the task, whereas the opposition is only committed to scoring cheap political points from a complex problem.