Linda Reynolds (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Migration and Maritime Powers Legislation Amendment (Resolving the Asylum Legacy Caseload) Bill 2014. This bill is a key part of the coalition government's promise to stop the boats. The coalition government, through this bill, is introducing a package of measures to resolve the immigration status of the illegal maritime arrivals legacy caseload, which currently sits at a staggering 30,000 people who arrived under the policies of the former Labor-Greens government.

In fact, when we came to government there were over 33,000 unresolved cases, 27,000 of which had not even started to be dealt with, and some of them had been in detention since August 2012. This bill honours the coalition's commitment to restore the full suite of border protection and immigration measures to stop the boats. These measures were successfully used under the Howard government but abolished by the former Labor government. I was working for the Howard government when we introduced these measures and faced this crisis over a decade ago. What happened under the previous Labor-Greens coalition was utterly foreseeable because we had been there before. We knew if you put the people smugglers back into business and you gave them a business model and a product to sell, they would do it. There is absolutely no surprise that once you implemented these policies then a flood of people would start to come in again. In fact, 50,000 people paid people smugglers to enter this country illegally. That was totally foreseeable, as were the consequences. If you get that many people coming in on boats you know people will die on the journey. You know that when they arrive they will have to be put into detention, and you also know they will have to be processed. But despite all of this being foreseeable as a consequence of the policy so irresponsibly implemented by those opposite, they did not make the provisions to process this increasing flood of people.

Those opposite talk about compassion all the time. Listening to the debate on this bill, and on similar bills and issues in recent times, I am still struggling—in fact, I find it impossible—to find compassion in a policy that entices people either to their deaths or to indefinite detention in this country. I do not understand the compassion; I see no compassion. In fact, with this legacy caseload, under the system of processing implemented and maintained by those opposite when in government, 30,000 people are still languishing under this system. Now what does that mean? It means 30,000 mothers, fathers and children whose lives are in limbo.

At the recent legislative committee hearing into this legislation, the department of immigration said that 'the government has made it very clear that no illegal maritime arrival will be granted a permanent protection visa. If this legislation is not passed, illegal maritime arrivals will remain barred from being able to lodge an application for a permanent protection visa.' So anybody who opposes this bill will be actively ensuring that these people remain in limbo. The question for these 30,000-plus people is: how long will they remain in limbo? The department said that 'if the government continued to process the IMA backlog for consideration of a grant of a temporary humanitarian concern visa in lieu of the TPVs'—which those on the other side have been blocking; now this is the important bit—'it is estimated that the backlog under the Labor-Greens legislation and processes would take at least seven years to process.'

I will say that again: if those opposite block this legislation it will mean that 30,000 people will remain in limbo, many of them for up to seven years. I struggle to understand where the compassion is in that—that is, leaving people, who were enticed to pay to come to this country, in limbo for a further seven years. Surely the most compassionate option would be to speed up their processing time by years so that they can get a decision: yes, they can stay on one of the new visas we are proposing; or, no, they cannot. Surely it is better to give people the news as soon as possible and not leave them in limbo indefinitely.

This bill will reintroduce temporary protection visas and will introduce safe haven enterprise visas, which are also temporary visas. It will reinforce the government's powers to undertake maritime turn backs and it will introduce rapid processing and streamlined review arrangements. Surely a compassionate response is to provide visas; to get people out in the community and provide them with an opportunity to work. It is not compassionate to provide permanent visas. This would again put the people smugglers back in business and we would start all over again with the deaths, with the arrivals, and with more people and more children in detention.

These measures deliver on the government's election commitments to reintroduce these TPVs, to ensure that no IMA will be granted a permanent protection visa, and critically, and most compassionately, to process Labor's backlog of 30,000 asylum seekers. This should come as no surprise to anybody in this chamber or anybody in the Australian community. The reintroduction of TPVs is fundamental to the government's key objectives to process the current backlog of IMA claims. I was on the committee inquiry into this bill; I heard the submissions from a wide range of people. Not a single one of them put forward a credible and implementable solution to this backlog that would not put the people smugglers back in business. To me, that is not the responsible and the compassionate course of action.

Under this policy from our government, we are providing temporary protection to those illegal maritime arrivals who are found to engage Australia's protection obligations. Temporary protection visas will be granted for a maximum of three years and will provide access to Medicare, social security benefits and work rights, despite what those opposite have been claiming. However, most importantly, temporary protection visas will not include family reunion or a right to re-enter Australia. Those of you who have had a look at recent committee testimony from a number of different inquiries will see that that is one of the products that people smugglers sell: you send us your young children—'anchor children'—and if they get in and get a visa, you can bring your whole family in. That is a horrific and an inhumane offering on behalf of the people smugglers and we cannot not deal with it.