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

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Science and Research (Senator Evans) to a question without notice asked by Senator Cash today relating to border protection and asylum seekers.

The height of arrogance is when a person who has been proven wrong refuses to admit that a decision that they took—and it may have been in good faith at the time—has been found to be completely, totally and utterly wrong. That is what we saw in the answers given by Minister Evans today to the questions that I posed to him. Despite the fact that his actions alone when Minister for Immigration and Citizenship have been completely, totally and utterly rebuked by the Labor Party, the minister still fronts question time today and refuses to accept that the actions that he took in revoking the Pacific solution were the wrong actions.

This is a minister whose actions resulted in $5 billion of taxpayers' money being wasted; 24,697 people arriving on 422 boats; and, what is worse, 704 verified deaths that have occurred since 2009. And the minister has the arrogance to reaffirm—not only last night on Q&A, but in the Senate today, that he is proud of the decisions that he took when minister for immigration in dismantling the former Howard government's Pacific solution. That is a decision that we know, with the tabling of the instrument of the designation of Nauru as an offshore processing country, has been refuted. Anybody who has read the reasons given by Minister Bowen for the designation of Nauru would know that everything that Minister Evans did when he was the minister for immigration has been completely, totally and utterly refuted and rebuked by the current Labor Party.

Despite the fact that the Houston report has effectively recommended the reintroduction of the Pacific solution, the Labor Party continues to say no to the reintroduction of the full suite of measures. This is despite the fact that yesterday was a historic day when it comes to border protection in Australia, because yesterday Australians witnessed the 10,000th person to arrive. Someone said to me earlier today, 'Was that in the entire time that the Rudd and Gillard governments have been in power?' And I said: 'You've got to be kidding me. That is almost 25,000 people. Yesterday Australians witnessed the arrival of the 10,000th person this year alone.'

Again, even that statistic fails to deter those on the other side to actually stop and consider that—despite the fact that when we were in government they continued to tell us that offshore processing would never work; despite the fact that for the last 4½ years we have told them that it did, statistics do not lie; but they have continued to demonise the coalition—the Houston report has effectively endorsed the position that Mr Howard took.

The Labor Party have now done what is now known as one of the greatest political backflips of all time and they have now endorsed at least the first step of the Howard government's policies. It does not go far enough and one can only think: how many more people will it take to arrive before the Labor Party understands that it is only by introducing the full suite of the Howard government's measures that you will actually do what we did and the Labor Party say is their stated aim: to stop the boats and to break the people smugglers' model?

This is a government that has now run out of excuses. In the same way that they denied during the period of the Howard government of the last four years the need for offshore processing on Nauru, they now, despite the evidence, continue to deny the need for the full suite of the Howard government's policies to be introduced. What we saw yesterday was 200 people on four boats arrive in Australian waters. We have had a 150 boats and more than 10,000 people turn up so far this year. The government needs to acknowledge that it is only the full suite of the Howard government's border protection policies that will restore integrity to the borders of Australia.