David Johnston (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by Senators Evans and Faulkner to questions without notice asked by Senators Humphries and Johnston today, relating to asylum seekers.

Incompetence in public policy is often very difficult to see, in a walking, living, breathing sense. Incompetence and ignorance are the principal ingredients that Labor ministers have, of recent times, been bringing to public policy. The government’s border protection policy is a classic example of a policy effected by an enormous amount of incompetence. Can I say that ceiling insulation, the solar rebate and solar hot water system schemes, green loans, school halls, the Auditor-General’s report on the NBN mark 1 and, of course, the emissions trading scheme, are but a few examples of gross public policy incompetence.

Border protection is another example of the simple ignorance of dozy and lethargic ministers with a complete lack of capacity to put themselves across the detail of the portfolio. This year 24 boats and 1,200 people have arrived illegally in Australia, in the last 10 weeks. This is all because the Rudd government dismantled the previous scheme inaugurated by the Howard government. The situation has become so dire and so out of control that we will shortly be processing people in Darwin.

The costs have blown out. By July of this year the government will have spent in excess of $230 million, in Christmas Island, which was not budgeted for. The total extent of this policy failure since August 2008 has been 92 vessels and 4,166 people. I pause to say that many of these people have traversed some 3,000 nautical miles from Sri Lanka. As of today, what is the government’s response to this matter? As of today, what is their policy initiative? Where is their movement to a solution to this policy? There is none. They sit there saying, ‘Mr Howard had the same problem more than eight years ago.’ That is simply an underlining of the level of incompetence and the level of disparagement of the problem and it shows a failure to perceive that there is a huge potential for a humanitarian disaster in the 3,000-mile air-sea gap between Sri Lanka and the north-west coast of Australia.

Just like in ceiling insulations where people’s lives have been put at risk through fire and electrified roofs, our Navy personnel have been exposed to extraordinary risks in dealing with these people. There is no better example than SIEV36. This is a risk they should not have had to bear. This is a risk that has put young Australian men and women in the Australian Defence Force at risk whilst they board illegal entry vessels and expose themselves to desperate people taking desperate measures. I was very disappointed that the minister did not know precisely, or have at his fingertips, the nature of the injuries sustained by those Navy people on board SIEV36 when it blew up and could not tell me their current state of health. I was extremely disappointed with that. Not only is this a policy failure; it is not a matter at the forefront of the consideration of this most incompetent and callous government.