Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to advise that the government will not be supporting the item moved by Senator Hanson-Young. This is where the government, the Greens and the opposition truly do part company. This is where the difference between how you manage your borders and whether you manage them with integrity or whether you let the people smugglers take control of Australia's borders becomes apparent. We have often stated this on this side of the chamber. In fact, we have said it since that fateful day in August 2008, when the then minister for immigration, Senator Chris Evans, commenced the wind back of the former Howard government's strong border protection policies, which had done what this government, under Minister Morrison, has done—that is, stopped the boats. We had always said that we would bring temporary protection visas back as part of our suite of policies—and why. The question we need to ask ourselves tonight is: why? The reason is evidenced in the facts. If you put the sugar on the table and you give the people-smugglers a problem to promote, they will. That product is a permanent visa in Australia. You take the sugar off the table, you take the product, the promise—

Senator Whish-Wilson interjecting—

The CHAIRMAN: Senator Whish-Wilson, you will cease interjecting.

You take the product off the table. You take permanent protection off the table, and the vile people-smugglers, who deal in human misery, no longer have a product to sell. That is exactly what this schedule does. Tonight we bring an end to 50,000 people coming here illegally by boat because the people-smugglers had a product to sell. Tonight we will put an end to the deaths at sea that occurred because the people-smugglers were able to market permanent protection in Australia. We know that in excess of 1,200 people were promised permanent visas in Australia and that they risked their lives to get here, and they did not get here—they died making the voyage. Tonight we put an end to that. We also put an end to the in excess of $11½ billion in cost blow-outs that the former government, so vocally supported by Senator Hanson-Young, oversaw because they failed to understand that permanent protection visas are the one thing that people-smugglers use to market their vile trade. I am going to end by reading from a recent transcript of the 7.30 program. This is what we are ending tonight. The reporter says:

Norris spent much of that time on patrol boats, including this one, HMAS Albany. He intercepted and boarded dozens of asylum seeker vessels.

Troy Norris, one of our ADF members, who routinely witnessed large-scale human degradation and misery, said this:

At the time you run on adrenaline. You are just trying to do the best you can to get as many people out of the water as quickly as possible. There's so many people on the water and they all look the same. All you see is a head and a face. That was one of the most difficult aspects of the recovery of the people in the water that are alive was the fact that you're playing God. And, I didn't like that too often—too much.

The reporter then says:

Often Troy Norris faced a different horror: retrieving the dead, including children.

Troy Norris responds:

They become quite bloated, very unrecognisable and there's only one way to pull them in and that's to grab 'em and, you know, try and chuck 'em in the boat. And sometimes you'd go to pull these people in the boat and all you'd end up with is a handful of flesh. They're just stripped to the bone. And after seeing stuff like that, it's pretty hard to forget.

And that is why, Senator Hanson-Young, the government is not supporting your amendment.