Mark Furner (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It gives me pleasure to make a brief contribution to this debate this afternoon, given some experience I have had in this area. Firstly, I would like to put on the record some of the commitments of the Gillard Labor government in this area. As you would probably know, in the 2010 budget the government announced $1.2 billion to bolster border security and to encourage a wide range of measures, including eight new border patrol vessels—the Armidales. That complements the $654 million border protection and anti people-smuggling package announced in the 2009 budget. The government also has established a dedicated Border Protection Committee of cabinet to drive the whole-of-government strategy to combat people-smuggling. I acknowledge the opposition’s support of the introduction of the Anti-People Smuggling and Other Measures Bill 2010, which was recently passed by the parliament.

I also want to remind people that, with regard to the UNHCR, we do have obligations as a nation to accept refugees who are in our waters. The numbers of refugees who have arrived on our shores have really been blown out of all proportion, and there are a number of areas that need to be rectified in terms of understanding what we are talking about. We are not talking overwhelmingly of hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers. In fact, numbers in Australia remain very low and that needs to be put into perspective. There were something like 380,000 claims lodged by asylum seekers in industrialised countries in 2009, and, by comparison, our figures show around 6,000 claims last year.

If you look at the opposition’s policy on turning boats back where circumstances permit, you will see that that is a hollow promise, because effectively, since 2003, there have not been any boats that have been turned back. We all know—and it was indicated by the previous speaker, Senator Pratt—that doing that would jeopardise our Australian Defence Force personnel, because all attempts to turn back the boats would result in sabotage, and that would put personnel on Australia’s Customs and Border Protection Service ships at risk. Oddly enough, when I was on the Australian Defence Force Parliamentary Program in July this year, that very question was posed by an LNP member to one of the members on HMAS Broome. The response given, appropriately, was exactly as I have just said—that, if you start turning boats back, what you will get in return is people sabotaging those boats and putting the personnel on our Armidales at risk.

The other observation I want to make is that Mr Abbott has indicated that he wants to use not a bat phone but a boat phone to have direct contact with captains and make a decision based on risk on the high seas. The last thing we need is to have our troops put in a position of having to speak to Mr Abbott about whether or not the boats should be intercepted. What we experienced in July this year was the interaction of a mock exercise as to how the Armidales interact with particular circumstances. There are procedural processes to follow in terms of direct contact with these boats and whether they are boats with people on them or boats doing illegal fishing. There are correct procedures to follow. That is what we experienced when we were up there in July this year in the Timor Sea. We have a great understanding of the excellent professional work our personnel do in the Australian defence forces, serving on the Armidales.

I want to pay particular acknowledgement to a professional young woman who was the CO of HMAS Broome, Kylie, who performs an amazing job in tough and hard circumstances, being away from home. It somewhat frustrates me that this sort of motion comes to this chamber, where I consider it as being an attack not only on the government but also on our Australian Defence Force personnel who are doing an excellent job up there in the Timor Sea. I think the opposition should think twice before they bring motions like this before this chamber.