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

It is no surprise that the coalition is still harping on this issue given its position on particular parts of its policy. I think the Senate and the public should be reminded that we made several attempts to fix this issue over a space of time and it took some consideration, it took a compromise by the government—a mature compromise—after the coalition had sided with the Greens and voted against our policy to stop boats arriving on our shores. In doing so, they stopped us from stopping boats arriving on our shores; they stopped us from stopping those drownings of those hundreds and hundreds of refugees escaping their countries to have a better life in this country. I am certainly proud to be an Australian and I know that a lot of the migrants that I confer with in my constituency are also so proud to be Australians; they are so proud that they are here and feel so fortunate. They express to me how lucky they are to be in Australia, how lucky they are to be in this country.

I wonder at times, I truly wonder, whether the coalition has some sort of desire or some sort of issue with migrants. It always seems to want to attack migrants. It always seems to want to attack their passage of coming to this country. It is not refugees' fault for wanting to come to this wonderful country of ours. We should all be reminded that it is the fault of those terrible people smugglers who have set up cartels over in Indonesia and other parts of our neighbourhood in the north. They are using these opportunities to bring people to this country for their own benefit, to make money out of others' misfortunes. Those cartels, those pirates, do not care whether the refugees end up at the bottom of the ocean; they do not give a damn about the fact that they are putting people on leaky boats. This is why we cannot allow a policy like turning the boats back.

I have spoken about this on numerous occasions in this chamber, but I have been fortunate enough to be on the parliamentary defence program. I am also fortunate enough to have with me this week an officer, a captain, from the Navy. We have spoken privately about this particular issue. He has conferred with me about the comments made by the Chief of Navy that turning the boats around will not work. It will not work. I have been up to Darwin. I went to Darwin in 2009 as part of the parliamentary defence program on Operation Resolute. We went out on an Armidale and we spent some time with the good, hard-working men and women on that boat. You get an understanding of how they operate. You get an understanding of what they do, and the professionalism they show in their roles is outstanding. They need to be commended, our men and women in the Australian Defence Force.

Furthermore, Senator Kroger and I recently went to RIMPAC and saw the good work that our men and women do on our boats over in that particular part of the world. One thing that was so stark and came home to me was this. An opposition member who is the shadow minister for health, Mr Peter Dutton, asked a question of one of the sailors on the boat—I cannot remember the name of the boat off the top of my head but it was certainly of the Armidale class being up in those waters. If you recall, this was around 2009 and it was getting close to the 2010 election and it was in the media, like it always is. He said, 'What would happen if we turned the boats back?' And this response was given by that sailor, the same response that Chief of Navy provides us time after time in estimates—and I know as I am a member of the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee—'It is not possible. It will not work. They will damage their motor. They will damage the hull of their boat. They will do anything to prevent a decent rescue of the people on those boats.'

So you end up in a situation where not only are you rescuing people from those leaky and damaged boats but you are also placing the lives of those hardworking professional sailors in a circumstance where their lives are at risk as a result of a policy the coalition wants to implement that will put in jeopardy the safety of our Defence personnel in those dangerous waters up in northern Australia. So that is why we cannot have a policy of turning the boats back. (Time expired)