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

Once again we have heard today in the commentary from the opposition and others in the coalition cheap political lines like 'virtual' and so on. Back before the last election, in 2010, the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Tony Abbott, used the same 'virtual' statements and cheap political statements like, 'We will stop the boats.' Close to the time of those sorts of comments and that campaign by the opposition starting, I had the opportunity of actually being on a boat. I was up there on the HMAS Bathurst, on a parliamentary Defence program. In fact, there was an opposition member from the House of Representatives, the member for Dickson, asking the same question of our Defence personnel: 'What will happen if we stop the boats?' Anyone could have worked out what the answer would be. The Defence personnel turned around and said: 'Well, if we stop the boats there will be mayhem. There will be refugees smashing holes into the hull, smashing the engine, doing anything—anything possible to be rescued.' And that is the issue with making those statements. That is the issue with having the policy of turning the boats around. They are going to turn them around to Indonesia, are they?

We have built a healthy relationship with the Indonesian government. I go back to about 18 months ago when the President of Indonesia came into this house and there was a joint sitting over there. He spoke about the changes that they are making to prosecute people smugglers. This is an example of the changes that have been occurring that the good relationship between the Australian government and the Indonesian government fosters. Yet, if we go sending boats back to Indonesia as the opposition proposes, no doubt that good, genuine relationship will dissipate forthwith. That is a main reason why we cannot go down a path of entertaining that sort of proposition.

If we go to the Nauru solution, which the opposition appear to be favouring—it appears to be their only opportunity of creating a solution to the refugee issues that we have in this country—history tells us that, of those refugees who went to Nauru, who in many cases were put in camps and allowed to rot in the sun in that terrible position, 95 per cent of them ended up in Australia or New Zealand. So we know as a result of history that that solution will not work.

The Malaysian outcome or agreement that we have been able to negotiate is the only position that we are able to entertain. It is a position that the opposition should be accepting with both hands because it provides a balance. It provides a balance of at least another 4,000 genuine refugees to come to our country, and I think that is a good move. It provides a balance where a future 4,000 refugees will come to this country to call Australia home. We cannot afford to allow this posturing and these political stunts of denying the opportunity for people like that to come to our country.

The UNHCR have also made it clear that the Nauru solution does not work. They have condemned it by saying it is just a dumping ground and a problem in a small Pacific island. When you go back and do your research on what occurred as a result of the Nauru Pacific island solution, you will ascertain that that is the case. That is what happened to those people.

I want to focus in closing on our good, hardworking Defence men and women who are involved in the Border Protection Command. I will be up there on Monday next week—as you know, Deputy President—as Chair of the Defence Subcommittee of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, and we will be meeting with them once again, as I did last year. I am sure they will agree with the committee—no doubt this subject might arise—that we cannot deny their health and safety in situations where there is trouble on the high seas. If we have policies like 'We will turn the boats back' or 'We will stop the boats,' we know the dangerous situation that those good men and women will be put in on the high seas as a result. That is why we cannot afford to allow the opposition to continue down the path of believing that that is the right alternative in dealing with our refugee problems. (Time expired)