Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

In rising to support the Migration and Maritime Powers Legislation Amendment (Resolving the Asylum Legacy Caseload) Bill 2014, I support the comments of those who have come before me, particularly those of Senator Reynolds in the last few minutes. I will be urging, from a humanitarian point of view, everybody in the chamber to support this legislation. I do want to reflect initially, if I may, on why we are where we are, because I think it is important for people to have some understanding of the history of this issue.

We know that the previous coalition Prime Minister, Mr Howard, dealt with this issue. He of course made the statement that we, Australia, would decide who comes to our country and the circumstances under which they come. It was interesting for me, not long after I came here some six years ago, to hear a comment by the honourable Philip Ruddock, whom Mr Howard appointed as the immigration minister. Coming from his legal background, particularly associated with supporting those in need, one might have thought that Mr Ruddock's view would be very much along the lines of: 'What can we do to encourage more to come?' The interesting point he made was this: 'I came to the realisation that the best way of protecting these would-be asylum seekers who would come by sea under circumstances in which they are encouraged by people smugglers was to make sure that they didn't get on boats in the first place.'

Philip Ruddock took the view that the safest position for those people was to make sure they were not put on old wooden leaky hulks, having paid significant, indeed scandalous, sums of money to people smugglers. So Ruddock went about the process of making sure that that took place. History of course records that that is what the Howard government achieved. At the time, the shadow minister for immigration was Ms Gillard. Ms Gillard used to have a press release. The press release was headed: 'Another boat, another policy failure.' It got to the stage that her staff or their printers were not troubled by that media release, because they stopped when the vessels stopped.

I remember, before meeting Philip Ruddock—Senator Cash would recall as well—watching him being interviewed by a very aggressive BBC interviewer in London. This man was being highly critical and highly rude, and Philip Ruddock in his usual quiet way listened to this fellow for awhile and then said to him, 'Why are you attacking our country when you yourselves have exactly the problem that we did have?' He said, 'The only difference is we have addressed it and you haven't.'

Of course, when the Rudd government came into power, the first thing they did was dismantle the processes, practices, procedures and legislation that had stood the test of time with the Howard government. As one who had recently worked in and had businesses in Asia, on the subcontinent and in the Middle East, it became apparent to everybody that the message to the people smugglers was: 'We're back in business. We can put our sign up again because once again Australia is a weak target.' So what we saw in that time was the lamentable circumstance of tens of thousands of people paying hundreds of thousands of dollars collectively to people smugglers to get on leaking boats for the possibility of making it to Australia or to one of our offshore islands.

We know that in excess of 50,000 people got on those more than 800 boats. We know about 1,100 people—about one every second day that Labor was in government between 2007 and 2013 that we know about—were lost at sea. Why do I emphasise that point? I return to some discussions with our naval personnel with whom I had the pleasure and privilege of visiting at the Larrakeyah Barracks as part of Sovereign Borders in July of this year. For those in the gallery who may not be aware: we have this wonderful program between the parliamentarians and the Australian Defence Force where we—there are 14 of us each year—can participate in a program with our Defence Force personnel. We are given no privileges. We meet everybody from the cooks to the generals to the admirals. We have the opportunity to learn from them at the coalface what their activities are, where their challenges lie. For their sins the military officers come and spend a week with us in Parliament House in September or October.

A circumstance played out last night on national television. That was the stress to naval personnel who have been associated with the illegal-boat-led immigration programs over the last few years. The small amount of footage that I saw was distressing. But the point they made to me was they were sure there were well in excess of 1,100 people who would have been lost at sea. They are the ones that we know about. One can only be open in admiration of the work that those naval and related Army personnel do in protecting our borders but also in offering assistance to those who used to come. They were stressed out because of increased workload. The vessels were certainly stressed out because of increased workload.

But the worst thing of all for them was that recently our national broadcaster, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, ran a line that our naval personnel had forced the hands of asylum seekers onto hot engine parts on those vessels. You had better have a clear understanding of their anger and their disappointment that such an allegation would be aired on a publicly funded national broadcasting service. I for one praised the Minister for Defence and others who drew attention to the scandalous allegation that was made and which has never been fully retracted, with a half-hearted apology from the head of the ABC.

Let's reflect on what has happened since Minister Morrison, ably assisted by his assistant minister, Michaelia Cash, took over responsibility for this portfolio. Since December last year—about this time—there has been one people smuggling venture, associated with 157 personnel. Only the one. Prior to that time, as we know, from September 2012 to September 2013—prior to us coming into government—there were no fewer than 401 such ventures, with 26½ thousand people on board.

I want to draw attention to the plight of genuine refugees—those who have gone through the process, those who have been found to actually be eligible for refugee status in this country who have been left floundering and rotting in refugee camps around the world as a result of the previous Labor government's policies. And why were they? Because Australia would accept a certain number per year. For each illegal immigrant—each illegally sourced asylum seeker who came—a genuine refugee then continued to rot with their families in refugee camps. I recall in Perth a young Sri Lankan fellow coming to see me, telling me that what was happening in these refugee camps was that, as a family got to the top of the list to come to Australia, unbeknownst to them, as a result of graft and corruption by management of some of these refugee camps, they never got to find out their names got to the top of the queue. Why? Because somebody came along with the inevitable brown paper bag, paid money, went to the top of the queue, came to Australia and had the deserving family continue to rot in such circumstances.

I was delighted to learn that the minister has indicated that we are now back to the stage of accepting some, I believe, 13,500 genuine refugees each year. On top of that, the people who will be the subject of this legislation are actually additional to those numbers. This is critically important—they are additional. So we will see again the flow of genuine refugees coming to this country under the conditions we have always approved and want to see in this place.

It is not just the direct cost—the $11 billion of cost—that the previous government ran up because they discontinued the policies of the Howard government that they inherited and that were working; it is what they then did when trying to account for some of those costs. The problem was compounded because they cut nearly 700 staff from the Customs service at a time when their duties were being increased as a result of not just illegal boat arrivals but also the burgeoning importation of drugs into this country. Only the other day we saw our border protection, customs, police and related services apprehend some $1.5 billion worth of methamphetamine and other illegal drugs.

We do not for a minute think that we are getting all that is coming into this country, but when you cut the guts out of the customs and immigration service—when you take 700 competent people out—what does that do to the drug cartels? It has been put to me that the drug trade is so lucrative that they say to the drug mules and others in the trade, 'If you get apprehended, we will replace the product free of charge.' Those are the challenges we are facing. The number of sea cargo inspections under the Labor government decreased by 25 per cent and there has been a 75 per cent reduction in air cargo inspections, so the chances now of being apprehended if you bring something in by air are not high. These are some of the spin-offs that occur when you end up squandering $11 billion when you inherited a situation that was under control.

I now come to the circumstance of this legislation directly. Temporary protection visas do exactly as their name suggests. If somebody comes to this country and returning them to their country of origin would put them at risk, they will be provided with a temporary protection visa. Wonderful. Over time, as we know, the conditions that caused them to have to leave their country, if they were the genuine asylum purposes, may change or can be the subject of examination and inspection.

I think one of the fairest components of the legislation we are considering, and the one I urge my colleagues in this place to support, is the capacity for a person during the time they are under a temporary protection visa to be provided access to Medicare and Social Security benefits and allowed to work. A lot of people in our community do not agree with that. We get email traffic that says: 'Why is the Australian taxpayer providing Medicare services for these people? Why are we providing social security benefits?' There are a number of reasons: firstly, we are generous people; secondly, we want to try to minimise the adverse impacts on these people; and, thirdly, we want to give them the dignity that goes with the capacity to work. How terrible it must be, for whatever reason and in whatever circumstances, for a person who comes to this country to be left rotting and not be able to work because they were not processed by the previous government, which had no sense of generosity and no capacity for administration.

As a person from a rural and regional background I support the comments of my colleague Senator Reynolds with regard to work in rural and regional areas. At this very moment where fruit and other crops are being harvested we have a shortage of labour because Australians are unwilling to leave their towns and cities to avail themselves of this work. Fruit is not being picked and is rotting on trees and vines, and grain is not being harvested. Here we have a tremendous opportunity for these people.

The second element of Minister Morrison's legislation is the safe haven enterprise visa. This is a visa for a five-year period. If holders of these visas have worked in regional Australia without requiring income support for 3½ years and if they meet the eligibility requirements, they will be able to apply for other onshore visas—family, skilled, temporary skilled and student visas. What a fantastic opportunity. We all know from our own experiences how quickly those who came in post the Second World War from Southern Europe—Italians, Greeks and others—assimilated into our communities and how we benefited from their involvement. We then had the later wave during and after the Vietnam War. The Vietnamese who have come to this country have enriched this country with their diligence, their hard work and their desire to study and improve themselves and of course they have changed our cuisine and our outlook on life.

Here under this legislation we are giving those people who will accept and be involved in the safe haven enterprise visa the chance, should they work for 3½ years—which is what they want to do; they do want to do the work that so many Australians do not seem to want to do—of family and skilled visas as well as temporary skilled and student visas. So they can set themselves up with sets of skills that indeed at the conclusion of that time they may well be able to take back to their country of origin, if indeed that is where they return, so that of course their lives and the lives of their children are enhanced into the future.

The legislation certainly requires a circumstance that people do make sure that they comply with Australia's rules and regulations. Perfectly, the Australian community would expect, that if a person on whatever form of these or whatever form of activity in this country, if they cannot comply with the rules of this country, if they cannot comply with reasonable legislation in this country, then they should be denied their right to continue here. I think that is an entirely reasonable circumstance.

Just in the last few minutes I do want to go back to the humanitarian activity and I do want to return to the topic briefly associated with our own military personnel. It is and has been an enormous burden. When we were in Darwin they actually asked us to put the clothing on that the personnel wear when they get into the rubber duckies to actually go to the vessel that they will be intercepting, remembering what temperatures would be like and humidity is like this time of the year. They will be in that equipment for six to eight hours, apprehensive, tentative, not knowing what they are going to meet when they arrive at the vessel. This is a pressure that they endure day after day. I for one want to say how pleased and proud I am of those people. I also want to say that this type of legislation will limit even more quickly and even more severely those who attempt—people smugglers—to bring people to this country illegally.