Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am happy to rise to speak in today’s MPI motion, because it gives me the opportunity to set some of the facts straight in the asylum seeker debate. Unsurprisingly, those opposite have once again chosen to play politics with this serious issue. As Minister Evans has highlighted a number of times, those opposite are far more interested in taking the low road with this issue. Increasingly, those opposite are travelling the low road with their tactics for political purposes.

Maybe those opposite need to stop and have a look at their own record, especially when it comes to children in detention. It was those opposite who presided over a policy that put children behind razor wire in high-security detention centres. Under the former Liberal government, thousands of children were held behind barbed wire at Nauru and at detention centres around Australia as part of the Liberal Party’s failed Pacific solution. But this government, the Rudd Labor government, has long held the policy that children will not be detained in immigration detention centres. So, upon coming to government, Labor enacted this commitment. We scrapped the failed Pacific solution that those opposite persisted with and we abolished the unjust temporary protection visa regime, implementing a more humane asylum seeker and refugee policy, including the abolition of the ineffective detention debt policy.

Those opposite seem content to peddle the same old tired lines. All those opposite seem to be interested in is scaremongering and political grandstanding—and, of course, reintroducing their failed Pacific solution, which includes reviving the cruel temporary protection visas. We know these approaches do not work, because there were a number of push factors that those opposite had to deal with when they were in government which resulted in a significant increase in the number of people seeking asylum in Australia.

As Minister Evans pointed out when Mr Abbott announced a return to the Pacific solution:

Temporary protection visas are a cruel hoax. They do not work and they do stop the boats.

After the Howard Government introduced TPVs in 1999, nearly 8500 people arrived by boat and more than 90 per cent of these people are now living in Australia.

The Pacific Solution also failed, with more than 70 per cent of those detained on Nauru and Manus Island ultimately being settled in Australia or elsewhere.

Mr Abbott claims that he will ‘turn the boats back’, but the fact remains that under the Howard government only seven boats were turned back and no boats were sent back after 2003. It has been reiterated time and time again by those of us on this side of the chamber that the Rudd Labor government remains committed to maintaining tough border protection policies.

As was announced earlier this year, the government have made changes to the way asylum seekers will be processed in Australia. We have announced the suspension of the processing of new asylum applications from Sri Lanka and Afghanistan. This allows more time for further improvements and stabilising of conditions in Sri Lanka and Afghanistan. These changes will ensure that Australia only accepts those asylum seekers who have genuine claims for protection, because not everyone who flees conflict is a genuine refugee.

As Minister Evans, Minister Smith and Minister O’Connor highlighted at the announcement of these changes, ‘the UNHCR is reviewing country conditions in both these countries and related guidelines for refugee status determination’. In light of the change in circumstances of these countries, the government has suspended processing new asylum seeker claims from Sri Lankan nationals for three months and for a period of six months for claims from Afghan nationals. These processing changes will be reviewed at the end of their respective periods.

The Rudd Labor government has also recently passed through this place the Anti-People Smuggling and Other Measures Bill. The new legislation will strengthen Australia’s people-smuggling laws. It will allow the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation to specifically investigate people smuggling and other border security threats. The bill will deliver additional offences to target those who finance people-smuggling activities. The bill will also deliver stronger penalties to those involved in people smuggling.

Those opposite are determined to revive their disgraced Pacific solution to detain asylum seekers. The Pacific solution exercise was costly, ineffective and nothing more than a political stunt introduced by those opposite on the eve of an election. And now, even after it failed so miserably, those opposite want to bring it back. That’s right: the Leader of the Opposition remains committed to the inhumane, failed Pacific solution.

The Rudd Labor government pledged to put an end to the Pacific solution and that is exactly what we have done. I hope we never see a return to the Pacific solution. As we know, it did not solve the people-smuggling problem. A number of push factors were the cause of the increase of boat arrivals then and, as those opposite are aware, there have also been a number of push factors increasing the number of asylum seekers in recent times.

Between 1999 and 2001, under the watch of those opposite, we saw 12,000 asylum seekers arrive. In 1999 we saw the arrival of 86 boats with 3,721 asylum seekers onboard, in 2000 we saw the arrival of 51 boats with 2,939 asylum seekers onboard and in 2001 we saw the arrival of 43 boats with 5,516 asylum seekers onboard—and that was after the introduction of TPVs. This influx of asylum seekers was because of the brutal regimes in Afghanistan under the Taliban and in Iraq under Saddam Hussein, which meant that large numbers of people were fleeing these countries to seek asylum. So push factors, like they were between 1999 and 2001, are the major reason for increased numbers of people seeking asylum in Australia.

The UNHCR’s latest complete publications are its 2009 Global report and Global trends documents. These publications make clear that forced displacement remains a massive global challenge. There were 43.3 million forcibly displaced people worldwide at the end of 2009, the highest number since the mid-1990s. The number of refugees returning home with UNHCR support in 2009 was the lowest in the last 20 years. The number of asylum seekers worldwide in 2009 increased by nearly 150,000 compared with 2008. One of the reasons for this increase was the high number of asylum claims from places such as Afghanistan.

The Rudd Labor government has not, as those opposite claim, gone soft on people smugglers. Today’s MPI is nothing more than an attempt to score cheap political points and to create a fear campaign. Since coming to office the government have maintained a tough and stringent border security regime. In this year’s budget we announced $1.2 billion to bolster and strengthen Australia’s border security. This will include investment in eight new border patrol vessels and the strengthening of aviation security. On the weekend the Minister for Home Affairs, Brendan O’Connor, announced that the procurement process for the eight new border protection vessels has now begun. The minister has highlighted that these vessels will be:

… larger, more robust and have a greater patrolling range than the Bay class vessels that they will replace. They could also accommodate more crew members.

We will provide $42.6 million over four years to meet project implementation and enhanced operating costs for these new border protection vessels, $32.9 million over four years for investment to work with Indonesia to better manage the issue of people smuggling in the region and $15.7 million over two years to ensure the continued presence of a dedicated vessel at Ashmore Reef.

These measures, plus many others, build upon the $654 million investment in last year’s budget to combat people smuggling. We have also maintained the procedure of sending asylum seekers to our offshore detention centre at Christmas Island for processing. We ensure that all asylum seekers who arrive on unauthorised boats are sent to Christmas Island for the appropriate security, health and identity checks. These are all measures that were in place under the previous government, and in fact the Rudd Labor government has enhanced the border security protection processes for Australia. (Time expired)