George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

Then you were here and you will remember that the policy was changed by the Rudd government. Secondly, we know that, before the policy was changed, in the period between 2001 and 2008 there had been a negligible number of asylum seeker vessels, in two years of that period not a single one—not one—and across those seven years a total of 23, an average of about three a year. Those are the facts, and you cannot—and, in fairness to you, you did not—controvert them.

The third thing we know, because we remember Senator Evans saying it, is that the policy was changed for humanitarian reasons, to do away with what were described as 'the harsh policies of the Howard government'. Senator Evans told Senate estimates how proud he was to have been responsible for doing away with those harsh policies. That is on the record.

The next thing we know that is not in dispute is that, immediately after those policies were changed, the number of unlawful asylum seeker vessels seeking to come to Australia went through the roof so that, in the 4½ years since, more than 500 vessels came. That is a fact. You may choose to believe, or to persuade yourself, that there was not a cause-and-effect relationship between that policy change and the sudden and continued escalation of people-smuggling. But if you seek to persuade yourself that there was not a cause-and-effect relationship then, with great respect to you, you are deluding yourself.

This last fact we know, too: hundreds and hundreds of people at least—on the most conservative estimates more than 700 people—whose bodies have been counted and recovered, died. Credible agencies, including Amnesty International and the UNHCR, have estimated that the likely number of deaths was more than 1,000. How many more than 1,000 is unknowable because we do not know how many bodies were never recovered. We do not know how many SIEVXs there were.

I do not wish to say anything cruel about Senator Evans, whom I regard as a good person, but it is a fact of life for senior political decision makers that they have to take responsibility for their decisions, which is why there is such a high price on bad decisions. This was a catastrophically bad decision made from the purest of motives. It was catastrophically wrong, and nobody, no matter how good or pure their intentions, can walk away from responsibility of the consequences. I think it was Saint Bernard of Clairvaux who said, 'The road to hell is paved with good intentions.' It has become a cliche, but it is also a truth. All ministers, in particular, are responsible for the consequences of the decisions they make, particularly when the likely consequences of those decisions were pointed out time beyond number in this chamber by the opposition. We were told that we were fear-mongering. The truth, as we know—the grim, fatal, statistical reality—shows that that was not so, that this was a terrible error which the government, albeit without acknowledgement, has been trying to walk away from ever since.

Secondly, let me say something about the Malaysia solution. The government chastised the opposition for supporting the Malaysia solution—