Concetta Fierravanti-Wells (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Ageing) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise to take note of answers given by Senator Carr to questions asked by Senators Abetz, Brandis and Cash. Senator Carr, with his usual bumbling sort of attitude, comes in here today and there is this sort of serial amnesia that the government now suffers from, conveniently forgetting—this is their modus operandi—what they promise before elections and what they do after elections. He was asked a question deliberately about what Kevin Rudd had said before the 2007 election. Minister Carr just conveniently wants to airbrush that out of history. But I would like to remind him of the sorts of promises that they made to the Australian public to con them into voting for them. The public did vote for them, and the Labor Party promised that they would do something. Back in 2007 they did not keep their promises, just as Prime Minister Gillard has not kept her promise about the carbon tax, but we will not go there today.

An article in the Australianof 23 November 2008 was headed, 'Kevin Rudd has taken a tough line on border security'. It said:

Mr Rudd said Labor would take asylum-seekers who had been rescued from leaky boats to Christmas Island, would turn back seaworthy vessels containing such people on the high seas, and would not lift the current intake of African refugees.

"You'd turn them back," he said …

He then mentioned an 'orderly immigration system' enforced by deterrence. The article continued:

You cannot have anything that is orderly if you allow people who do not have a lawful visa in this country to roam free," he said. "That's why you need a detention system. I know that's politically contentious, but one follows from the other.

"Deterrence is effective through the detention system but also your preparedness to take appropriate action as the vessels approach Australian waters on the high seas."

And, might I remind those on the opposite side, it was the Australian Labor Party that introduced mandatory detention into this country. Why do I know? Because as a lawyer with the Australian Government Solicitor's office I did my fair share of immigration work. So don't you come into this place, Senator Collins, and moralise about the coalition. You look back at your own history in relation to immigration matters. You look back at your first reading speeches and at your conduct on immigration over those years, and don't come into this place and moralise about the coalition.

Yes, the coalition, through the years, did stop the boats. Yes, we did have an orderly immigration process. And you ask those millions of people who have come to this country, who came in through the front door, how they feel about what is going on, about what has now become the chaos, the mess, the debacle that is this government's immigration and border protection system. You ask them about what happened after August 2008, under then Minister Evans. He comes in here pontificating and trying to dictate to us. He systematically started the dismantling of this system. He sat there in estimates and detailed a program change here, a program change there—no wonder the people smugglers rubbed their hands together: because they knew that they were well and truly back in business. What have the government done? They have effectively dismantled it, bit by bit. And what have we now seen? We have seen a cost blow-out of $3 billion. When the coalition were in government, it was a program that cost less than $100 million. That was under the Howard government. Just over three years ago, under the Rudd government, it cost more than $1 billion. You have had cost blow-outs.

I say to those opposite: you talk about people being in detention. That is the object of a temporary protection visa, because ultimately you have to give assurances to the Australian people that the people are who they say they are, and that is why it is vitally important that you have proper security. That is not a guarantee that I think this government can give the Australian public. (Time expired)