Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Hanson-Young started her contribution to this debate by saying how embarrassing it was. I have to say, quite frankly, that I find it very embarrassing to listen to those pious words which I know are driven more by politics than actual conviction. I have observed firsthand some of the misleading statements, the grandstanding, the self-promotion that not only Senator Hanson-Young but in fact the entire Greens party have undertaken with respect to this debate. It is alarming that they are so naive or are deliberately misleading the Australian people under this notion of fairness. That is why the Australian people so easily dismiss this pious rhetoric from the Greens. It is an extraordinary claim we have heard here today that the Greens party, via Senator Hanson-Young, is now encouraging the Australian government to go over and identify refugees and bring them back over here. This contribution is somehow suggesting that the Australian government should now get into the people-smuggling racket. It is just a joke. It is beyond belief that this is meant to be a sensible debate, a compassionate debate, a debate about protecting Australia's borders, when we have politicians who are openly advocating going out and grabbing people from other countries and bringing them in here of our own volition.

We do have a humanitarian refugee policy. It works through the United Nations HCR and it has worked effectively, but it only works effectively when it is combined with a strong border protection policy. We have seen a strong border protection policy before, under the Howard government, in which the boats effectively stopped. The people smugglers were put out of business. Unlike the Greens party, I still want to put the people smugglers out of business. The Greens want to put everyone else except the people smugglers out of business. They want to keep them in business. This is outrageous.

We also know that the government is sharply divided on this issue. We know that courtesy of some leaks from cabinet, in which some members of the cabinet were allegedly saying, 'We should be embracing the Nauru solution again.' Indeed they should. We have said that repeatedly. Now there are some with common sense in the Labor Party who know their border protection policies are not working and they are trying to embrace ours. I support them for it and I commend them for it. But of course I also condemn the people who leak from cabinet, because one of the privileges of being in cabinet is that you retain cabinet confidence. I notice that, rather cruelly, people are sheeting home the blame for these leaks to a particular minister in this chamber. In his steadfast support of Ms Gillard, he is trying to prop up her poor leadership at the moment whilst the forces are assembling to re-install Mr Kevin Rudd. Earlier we heard from one of the numbers people for Mr Rudd, Senator Bishop, who has been busy undermining his own Prime Minister and trying to drum up support for Mr Rudd.

The simple fact is that this Labor government has been absolutely bereft in maintaining a strong border protection policy. I know it has no intention of causing death and distress. It would be reprehensible to suggest that. But the reality is that, with this weak border protection policy, we now have people smugglers that are selling tall tales and fanciful tales based on the government's policy to entice people to get on their boats and spend their hard-earned money to come out here. The proof is there, because over 10,000 of these people have paid to take this trip, and they do it because they know that when they get here this government will support them and endorse their decision to try and usurp the system and bypass the traditional points.

We can very clearly trace this back to when the Labor Party changed the policy. I will stand corrected if I am wrong, but I believe that the current policy was written by Ms Gillard herself; she endorsed it. But Ms Gillard's reputation for telling the truth is somewhat tarnished, not least of all in this area. In 2002 she made a statement that she would turn the boats back. In 2008 she said that it is fanciful, that no-one can do that. Then of course, not that long ago, she maintained that there was a virtual way of turning the boats back. We know the result of this government's border protection policies. It is that people are paying people smugglers to come out here. There are many non-bona-fide refugees amongst them. There are many people in detention centres. We have seen a blow-out in the budget costs of the administration of these detention centres, from $100 million only three or four years ago to over a billion dollars per year now. This is an outrageous indictment. I have been to some of these detention centres. I have seen that people are there for a long period of time because the government does not know what to do with them. They cannot be released into the Australian community and they cannot be sent home. This is a failure of monumental proportions and it is a failure that is playing havoc with people's lives.

The answer to this is very simple. It is for those smart people, if there are any in the Labor cabinet, to re-embrace the Nauru solution, which is ready and which can be run under Australian guidelines and Australian strategies. Nauru is a signatory to the human rights convention. It could be run at a very effective cost and it has been proven to stop the boats when it is combined with temporary protection visas and an ability to turn the boats around where it is safe and prudent to do so. These are common-sense measures.

What has happened in the Labor Party? Where has the common sense gone? It has vacated the premises, like Elvis. Elvis has left the building; well, so has common sense when it comes to this government, because it cannot get this right. Senator Bishop said they had had a myriad of solutions and they had been working on this for three years. You had a decent solution, Senator Bishop, which was ready-made and embraced, and it was part of a successful government. And then you changed it. You changed it, just like you changed from Mr Rudd to Ms Gillard. Now you are going to change back. I know you regret that, Senator Bishop, because you are doing the numbers for him. But you have got a bit of an effort to convince some others in your party. Anyway, Mr Rudd will be coming back because he knows that this government is on track for a disaster because of the disaster they have given to the Australian people not just in terms of the budget but in terms of the moral guidance and the substance—the fact that they are not prepared to take a tough stand against people smugglers. They will talk the good talk, they will deliver the rhetoric, they will blame the opposition—they will do a whole range of different things—but their solutions have been failures.

I suspect that the next speaker will get up and say that we should have supported the Malaysian solution. Frankly, we should not have supported the Malaysian solution, because the Malaysian solution was not a solution; it was a temporary, stopgap measure that would have already failed at every level, because more than 800 people have already arrived. It would have been an abject failure. The point that I really think is important is that if this government were serious, if this government really genuinely wanted to stop this repulsive trade in people smugglers, they would ditch the Greens, they would ditch the Greens' extremist policies and they would re-embrace the solution that the majority of Australians know works. It has been demonstrated to work and it will continue to work if it is done. I say this to Senator Farrell and the Prime Minister and anyone in the Labor Party: if you embrace the Nauruan solution again and reintroduce temporary protection visas and turn the boats around when it is safe and prudent to do so, I will not make any political mileage out of it. I will go out and celebrate the fact that you have got some common sense back in your party policy.