Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration) Share this | Hansard source

To understand the gravity surrounding today’s matter of public importance, it is very important to set the scene. We need to understand properly what the state of Australia’s detention network was when the Howard government lost office in 2007 and then look at the state of the detention network in March 2011 under the Gillard government and after the Rudd government.

These are the facts. When the Howard government lost office, only four people who had arrived illegally by boat were in detention in Australia. Let us compare that to March 2011 under what is now the Gillard Labor government. Today, that figure is more than 6,300 and that includes more than 1,000 children. The annual budget has increased sevenfold since Labor came to power. That is Australian taxpayers’ money that is being utilised to pay for Labor’s policy failings. There has been a total budget blow-out of over $1 billion. That is $1 billion of taxpayer’s money by which this government has underestimated costs when forecasting the number of asylum seekers who would come to Australia under its policies.

Of the more than 10,000 people who have turned up by boat since this government came to power, only 160 have been returned to their countries of origin. When considering the Labor government’s border protection policy, this is what Australians are now faced with. Christmas Island is beyond capacity. It is so beyond capacity that the AFP have requested that the port be closed because they cannot afford to have any more people coming to the island.

The Labor Party are now opening detention centre after detention centre after detention centre on the mainland—without any consultation with the communities that are going to be affected. We all know that universal offshore processing is now history. We know that because the Labor government’s new policy, as of yesterday, is to ensure that the boats do not go to Christmas Island but are brought directly to the mainland. Detainees are escaping from detention centres on Christmas Island and, when you actually ask the minister how many have not been accounted for and how many are still on the loose on Christmas Island, the Minister representing the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship stands in this place and says that, quite frankly, he does not know. I will be honest with you—I do not think the minister actually cares either. That is an absolute disgrace.

When questioned about the failure of the government’s border protection policies, the government tries to counter its failures with a massive spin. We all saw the Department of Immigration and Citizenship’s advertisement on page 28 of yesterday’s Australian. What was it doing? It was seeking applications for an additional six public affairs and media officers, those positions paying between $56,000 and $117,000 a year. It would be laughable if it were not true. When will those on the other side understand that you cannot spin your way out of policy failures of this magnitude? Talking of spin, what did the minister say last Thursday? Following a night of rioting by some asylum seekers on Christmas Island, Minister Bowen came out with:

… the situation on the island as we speak is calm.

I do not know if Christmas Island residents would necessarily agree with Mr Bowen. After another night of rioting, the minister said:

At no stage during the week have I underplayed the seriousness of this situation.

We all know that those words have now come back to bite him. Then there was the statement by the Prime Minister, who was in complete, total and utter damage control. The Prime Minister said that the situation on Christmas Island was all under control.

Let us have a look at the situation on Christmas Island. We had the use of tear gas and beanbag rounds, we had mass breakouts, we had fires, we had rock-throwing and we had protests. We still have detainees that are potentially on the loose on Christmas Island. That is the definition, under a Labor government, of a situation that is under control. That is an absolute indictment of those opposite that they would dare to say to the people of Australia and, in particular, to the people of Christmas Island that that is a situation that is under control.

Then the minister could not help himself. He went further and said: ‘I take responsibility for it and I take responsibility for making sure the situation is under control going forward.’ Well, if the minister is going to put his money where his mouth is, if the minister is actually going to live up to this so-called responsibility that he says is his alone, then the minister needs to stand before the Australian people and have the guts to admit to them that, under the Labor government, there has been a complete, total and utter breakdown of border protection policy. But we all know that the minister does not have that guts. The minister does not have the guts to actually stand before the Australian people and admit that, under this government, Australia’s borders are no longer secure.

I was reading a comment from the Christmas Island community leader, Kane Martin, who probably would like to speak with Minister Bowen in relation to his statement that the situation is calm and under control, because this is what Kane Martin said:

People are locking their doors, people are locking their cars ...

Now while this might seem like a small thing on the mainland, this is essentially the core of what it is to be a Christmas Islander—to have that sense of freedom, to have that sense of safety and to have that sense of community all around us.

It’s certainly been challenged at every level.

That is an absolute disgrace, and it is the sole fault of the Gillard Labor government. The bad news for Australians is that this is a situation that need never have occurred. I go back to what the situation was in 2007 when the Howard government lost office. Those on the other side are very quick to throw statistics at us and say, ‘But under your watch you had thousands arriving.’ Do you know what? Yes, we did. You are right—yes, we did. But unlike those on the other side we had the guts, we had the stomach to stand up and make some very, very tough policy decisions. Once we had made those decisions we had the guts and the stomach to stand by those decisions.

We all know what the result of those decisions was. It is a statistical reality that the boats stopped coming. That is something that those on the other side cannot deny. It is also a reality that, when those on the other side decided to wind back the Howard government’s strong border protection measures, the boats started coming again.

There is only one way forward and that is for those on the other side and for the minister to realise, to stand up, to have some guts and to re-adopt the Howard government’s strong border protection policies. Despite the Prime Minister’s pathetic protestations Australia’s borders are not safe. As at 4 February 2011 there were 6,659 people in immigration detention. This is an appalling record and continues to confirm that Gillard Labor is failing to protect Australia’s borders. (Time expired)