Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I start by offering my condolences to the family of Reza Barati. I echo the condolences that the government has expressed for this tragedy. I also congratulate Minister Morrison. I join with other coalition members in rejecting the premise and the intent of this MPI that we are debating today.

Minister Morrison, in very difficult circumstances, is doing the job that the Australian people asked him to do and which the Prime Minister has asked him to do—that is, to regain control of our borders and to stop the flow of illegal boats. Minister Morrison is doing that job in very difficult circumstances, despite the protestations of some of those opposite. I think we should take the time to reflect on the fact that the job of stopping the boats and stopping the drownings is now underway. Minister Morrison deserves praise for that rather than many of the false criticisms that have been tossed around, particularly by the Greens but also by members of the Labor Party.

Let's go to the substance of this issue. The facility on Manus Island was established by Labor. It was established with bipartisan support from the coalition. There was a disturbance with a tragic death at the end of that. The minister gave information as it arose, and where he was advised that information was incorrect he corrected the record, giving constant updates in relation to the information that was coming.

The government, as has been stated already, has commissioned a review by Robert Cornall, which will look into all the circumstances of this tragedy. Unlike some of those opposite, particularly the Greens, we will not be prejudging that investigation. That investigation should be allowed to take its course.

What I will not do is allow the Greens to lecture the coalition on compassion and effective policy in this area. I will not accept that. I will go to what Senator Hanson-Young said at the start of her address. She said that she wanted to raise the tone. I agree: we should raise the tone. We should raise the tone above statements like Senator Milne's, which was that he was murdered. We should raise the tone above the statement of Adam Bandt, which was that we killed him. We should raise the tone. We should raise the tone above what we hear constantly from those opposite. We should raise the tone above Senator Hanson-Young's statement in response to deaths at sea. When asked whether she took any responsibility she said, 'Of course not; tragedies happen. Accidents happen.' How simple it was when the Labor Party and the Greens were running things and 1,100 people drowned.

Senator Hanson-Young's response, in those circumstances was that tragedies happen, accidents happen and that she does not take any responsibility. I think we should raise the tone and we should—

Senator Hanson-Young interjecting—

It is interesting, isn't it: no responsibility for the policies that you supported—no responsibility whatsoever. I agreed with the former minister Tony Burke when the Labor Party belatedly acknowledged that the policies were not working. He said, and I agree with this statement:

There is nothing compassionate in a policy where you see people drowned at sea.

…   …   …

In the first place, if it does have an impact on the number of people risking their lives on the high sea, that is a massive difference and compassion can't be limited to who is in your line of sight. The people who drown on the way here don't end up giving interviews.

No, they do not. Tony Burke was right: there is nothing compassionate about the kinds of policies that were pursued for most of the time that the Labor Party was in government and are still advocated by the Greens and were advocated right the way through this motion.

We are faced with choices. We can go down the path that the former government went down and we can see what results they got. What were those results? Fifty thousand people arrived illegally on 800 boats; more than 1,100 people tragically perished at sea—one every two days; more than 6,000 children had their lives put at risk by making the dangerous journey to Australia; and more than 14½ thousand desperate people have been denied a precious resettlement place under our offshore humanitarian program because, under the former government and the Labor-Greens policy, those places were taken by people who arrived illegally by boat. This is about choices. We have a choice as to whether we want to revisit what happened over the last six years, with all of the tragic consequences, or whether we implement policies which stop the boats—because when we stop the boats, we stop the drownings.

Some of those opposite might want to pretend that those 1,100 people who drowned do not matter. I do not accept that. Just as this one death was a tragedy and we need to get to the bottom of it and develop policy responses to make sure it does not happen again, those 1,100 deaths were a tragedy. We are putting in place policy responses to make sure it does not happen again.

You have to ask the question: do the Greens want the policy to fail? It would appear from everything we have heard that they do, because, at no point in any of their contributions either in this place or elsewhere, have they said, 'Isn't it good that people are not risking themselves on that journey in the numbers that they were? Isn't it good that we haven't seen any drownings for the last few months because the boats are stopping?' Isn't that a good thing? Shouldn't we be celebrating that? If you genuinely cared, you would have it within yourself to say, 'Yes, it's a good thing.' We will get to the bottom of this tragedy, but let's stop the thousands of tragedies that we saw under six years of Labor-Greens government in the past.