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

I listened very carefully to the Minister representing the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship in his answers to some of the questions he was asked today in question time, and I caught the phrase 'sleazy deal', which I will have another look at when I review the Hansard tomorrow. But I have to say for the minister's information that the only sleazy deal that is actually being done is the deal that is being done by the Gillard government with the government of Malaysia: 'We'll give you 800; however, in return we'll take another 4,000.'

This government has shown the people of Australia that there is no principle that it is not willing to break, no promise it is not willing to not keep and no policy that it is not willing to shred in the interests of staying in power. Based on what we have seen with the latest thought bubble coming out of the Prime Minister, the Malaysian deal, Australians can only assume that the Prime Minister of Australia must wake up each morning and say to herself: 'What do I believe in today? What spin or tall story can I give to the media so that they can tell the people of Australia that maybe I have some form of idea or policy, even if those ideas or policies have a shelf life of approximately 24 hours?' This is no better reflected than in the deal that has been done by the Gillard government, the so-called Malaysian deal: the deal where we send one asylum seeker to Malaysia and in return the Malaysian government sends us five back. That is the deal that has been struck by the Gillard government.

I have to say the absolute absurdity of this deal was summarised quite beautifully today in a cartoon in the Advocate newspaper on page 15. The cartoon is of the Prime Minister, and it has a thought bubble coming from her head which says: 'Hee hee! We trade their 4,000 for our 800 and we throw in $290 million, and the Malaysians fell for it.' That sums up the state of this deal that the Gillard government has done with the Malaysians.

But, on top of that, what Australians need to understand is that they pay for everything under this deal. The Malaysians are not going to be paying for anything. We have negotiated a deal whereby we give, we take back even more and we pay for both the giving and the taking. For every refugee that we are going to be giving back to Malaysia, Australians will have paid $90,000, and for every refugee that we will be taking from Malaysia to Australia Australian taxpayers will have paid approximately $54,000. That is absolutely absurd, but I have to say that, if I were the government of Malaysia, I would have snapped up the deal. I would have snapped it up and then I would have turned to the Prime Minister and I would have said, 'Are there any other deals that you'd like to do today?' because I am quite sure that, with the way that that Prime Minister negotiates, there was certainly a deal to be had by the Malaysian government.

The coalition is not against genuine refugees seeking asylum in Australia. What we are against, however, is an incompetent government that has absolutely no idea whatsoever about maintaining the integrity of Australia's borders. The so-called Malaysian deal—on top of the potential to do the deal with PNG, on top of the fact that the Nauruan government would actually like the phone picked up for a call to them and on top of the fact that we also had East Timor thrown in the mix at one stage—represents nothing more and nothing less than a panicked announcement by a Prime Minister who realised that she was running out of options very quickly and the only policies that actually worked were the policies of the former Howard government. Because the details are so lacking under the Malaysian deal, the Prime Minister of Australia cannot even tell the Australian people which refugees we will be getting from Malaysia and, more so, which refugees we will be sending to Malaysia. The Prime Minister of Australia has refused to rule out whether or not pregnant females, children, the elderly and people who have disabilities seeking asylum in Australia will be sent to Malaysia as part of the deal that was struck with them. If this is true, it is possibly the most inhumane move I have ever heard from any government. It is an absolute disgrace.

What is worse is the utter hypocrisy from the Labor Left, because it was reported in the newspapers today that this Malaysian deal—despite the lack of detail, despite the obvious flaws and despite the complete disregard of a humanitarian approach—has been accepted by the left wing of the Labor Party. If that is true—and we have no reason to doubt it is not—there is only one conclusion that can be reached about the Labor Left: they have trashed their principles and they have let the Prime Minister of Australia walk all over them and throw out their core values. Clearly, they do not have the guts to stand up to the Prime Minister and tell her that she is wrong. The members and senators of the Labor Left should be ashamed. They are being ignored and they are being ridiculed by the Prime Minister of Australia. In fact, the Australian newspaper today reports that left faction convenor Doug Cameron initially had reservations about the plan but Senator Cameron, who tackled Ms Gillard on the issue at yesterday's caucus meeting, said he had come to see it as an innovative solution. It must have been a pretty pathetic tackle if the outcome is that the Labor Left have rolled over, had their tummies tickled by the Prime Minister and have accepted that the Malaysian deal is in some way innovative.

Which part of the deal do the so-called Labor Left see as innovative? Is it the part where for every one asylum seeker we get five back? They probably do like that part of the deal. Is it the part where the Prime Minister has refused to rule out the deportation of pregnant women and children and has refused to rule out the deportation of the elderly or the infirm? Perhaps the Labor Left really like the part where the Prime Minister of Australia said, 'We are going to do a deal with Malaysia, even though last year I am on the record as saying that I will rule out anywhere that is not a signatory to the refugee convention.' We all know that Malaysia is not a signatory to the refugee convention. Perhaps the Labor Left were won over by Malaysia's alleged undertaking that asylum seekers will not be sent back to the country that they are fleeing from. All I can say to the left wing of the Labor Party is that I hope that statement by the government of Malaysia is not one with the same substance as the statement by Prime Minister Gillard the day before the scheduled election last year when she said to the people of Australia, 'There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.' We all know what happened as soon as the Prime Minister assumed office—she changed tack.

To the Labor Left: you have rolled over just like you did on the pay equity deal. You rolled over and you played dead. You did not have the guts to stand up and, just like that, you have done the same here. You have rolled over and you are betraying your constituency by agreeing to the Malaysian solution. You are now endorsing the Prime Minister of Australia's game of Pacific bingo. What Pacific island will the Prime Minister come up with next? We have had East Timor for months and months. East Timor was the be-all and end-all for the Labor Party. That was going to be the saviour policy for the Labor Party. We on this side had consistently said it was never going to happen, and every time we said that what did the Labor Party tell us? We were wrong. And now it has been absolutely, completely and utterly ruled out not only by the East Timorese but also by the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Mr Bowen. East Timor is done and dusted.

What did we have in the press the other day? We had PNG. We had the Secretary of the Department of Immigration and Citizen­ship, Andrew Metcalfe, making a quick and quiet trip up to PNG to have a chat with the PNG government about whether or not we should reopen Manus Island, despite what the Labor Party has said about Manus Island in the past. Lo and behold! Before the dust had even settled on the newspapers, the Malaysian deal was struck, allegedly. According to the Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, Senator Carr, it is going to be struck within the next few weeks—signed, sealed and delivered. On top of that, we have Nauru in the mix—the only country that wants the Prime Minister to pick up the phone and say, 'Can we bring refugees to you?' The Prime Minister refuses to deal with them.

This is a government that is in complete disarray. This is a government that has a minister whose department is failing to tell him what is going on in the detention centres. We have a Prime Minister and a Labor government that is so desperate that it will do anything and say anything and accept any deal in an attempt to get itself out of the mess it is in.