Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

In continuation from earlier today, I am debating with my colleagues in this chamber the Anti-People Smuggling and Other Measures Bill 2010. As I said earlier this afternoon, the coalition supports the bill. We are giving our support to the government because in essence the bill tightens and clarifies certain criminal offences regarding people smuggling. We support it because it defines and extends the investigative powers of such critical agencies as ASIO, no less. But, as I said, this bill is too little too late—it does not go to the core of the problem, and the problem is we have a surge of boats coming to our shores virtually unchecked. Certainly, most of them are getting picked up—not all, tragically. As I left the debate earlier I announced in this chamber that the Hon. Brendan O'Connor, Minister for Home Affairs, has said that yet another boat has made it through our border security. I do not think the government has announced it other than by press release—certainly the minister has not come into this chamber and said anything. Mr O’Connor said that yesterday afternoon, 54 nautical miles south-south-west of Scott Reef, a boat with 48 people on board was picked up. It was picked by no less than the Oceanic Viking, still out there working the refugee trade when it should be assigned to more productive areas down south. As I mused earlier, how lucky are those refugees to see the name Oceanic Viking? It brings back all the memories of when the government was blackmailed last year by a group of refugees who got a special deal because they would not remove themselves from the boat.

Mr O’Connor said in his press release that while the nationality of these asylum seekers is not known, if they happen to be Sri Lankan or Afghans, the government, under its announcement of 9 April 2010, will not be processing them—at least not for at least six months. That is the new law that the government has introduced—the new dictum. I would have thought that to be the wrong end to introduce it. I would have thought that to be a little inhumane. I thought you built your case—your humane case, your moral case, with the minister trumpeting and yelling and shouting from his podium—on the fact that the processing would be done quickly. You are confused. You are absolutely confused. Now you are not going to process them if they happen to come from Sri Lanka or Afghanistan, the very two countries you said were the push factors. You built your case on the push factors from these two countries; now you will not even process people from there. I think that is inhumane and I think that collapses your whole case in regard to border security.

You ought to stop the boats before they leave, not treat the people inhumanely when they get here. They have a right to be processed, seeing as you have now picked them up. So the point is this: your case in regard to push factors has now been turned totally on its head. You are now not processing Sri Lankans and Afghans, because you do not think the problems lie in the countries that you once said they did—they are no longer the push factors, so you have banned processing. What a con; what a bunch of frauds! Even on this issue the Australian people do not know where you stand. And, while you are not processing Afghans and Sri Lankans anymore, you happen to allow three or more—I am not sure—unsavoury characters who ought to be sent home because the weight of evidence that they are not fit characters is compelling.

Who can forget back in April of last year the explosion of SIEV36 off Ashmore Reef? That was a very dramatic affair where the government allowed the Navy to swing in the wind when they were accused of not acting properly under those sorts of pressures. Of course, the coroner in the Northern Territory found otherwise. I have never heard the minister come in here and defend the Navy in their actions. Of course, they acted honourably, they acted properly and they acted according to the book. There happened to be some characters there found guilty by the coroner of setting that boat alight, but they are allowed residency in this country, perhaps pending charges or perhaps not. There is an ability under the law for the minister to act without waiting for the DPP and I say he ought to.

There are contradictions everywhere now in your policy. You are allowing unsavoury characters who put a light to the ship and cost the lives of five people. You have allowed the Navy to swing in the wind. You now no longer will process Afghans and Sri Lankans. Yet you will not change the core of your policy and the core of your policy is the problem: temporary protection visas, for example—no onshore processing. You would have none of these problems—the onshore processing problem you have now or the bursting at the seams of Christmas Island where people are living in tents—if you had a tough policy. How humane is that policy? You do not have a humane policy at all and you do not have a tough policy at all, as much as you trumpet around that you are getting tough, such as this legislation which has now become your cornerstone. It is not humane and it is not tough and you will not do anything about it. Either you are caught up in the politics of it or you are just plain weak. You are playing with Australia’s border security, you are playing with people’s lives and you are playing with people who are waiting in the queues of the refugee camps. Make no mistake: this is old-fashioned queue jumping. They are not my words; they are the words of the United Nations High Commissioner. He claims that such asylum seekers that make their way to Australia or anywhere are queue jumpers and he used the word ‘queue jumper’, I should add. Where is the morality in your policy?