Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

We're told these people are in a jail. It's the sort of inflammatory language the Greens use. They sent along their GetUp! people to invade my office last Friday when I was in PNG at the time—they were too stupid to come when I was there—and they got themselves arrested because they intimidated my staff. But we expect those sorts of things from the Greens and GetUp!. If Senator McKim and Senator Singh want to know what's really happening, why go to UNHCR officials? Some of them are good; some of them you couldn't describe that way. Why not go to the honest, hardworking Australian public servants who know what is happening there?

I have the misfortune of chairing the estimates committee where immigration is brought up, and every time Senator McKim keeps asking the same questions and being told by Australian public servants what the situation is. The situation is these people—who are not refugees, most of whom have been found not to be refugees; those who are refugees have been invited to apply to go to America or can settle within Papua New Guinea—are currently getting $174 a week in pay from the Australian taxpayer in addition to medical care and accommodation, which includes all of their food.

As Senator McKim has been told time and time again, the people on Manus are free to move around the island and in the general community there. The Courier Mail showed a wonderful photo of some of these so-called refugees being confined there, looking like they're on a holiday on a tropical island. They're allowed to do that. They live there freely. They can come and go as they please. Again, this is evidence in the Senate estimates committee. The service is much nicer at east Lorengau—I'm quoting an Australian official—than in the regional processing centre, which is where they were. All the accommodation being offered is hard walled. Each of the units in east Lorengau that people will be living in have a shared kitchen, a living facility, a number of bedrooms and a bathroom. They have a washing machine facility adjacent to the unit areas, as well as prayer rooms and other service areas where they can congregate and meet, and there are training facilities as well. Does this sound like a jail? Does this sound like the police and army in PNG are herding these people around and tipping over their only source of water? They only have to walk—they don't have to walk, they will be transported by the PNG officials—a couple of minutes away to three wonderful sites that are available and have all the food, all the medication, all the doctors, all the resources that are needed.

Yet Senator McKim would have Australians believe—and he fools some people. Some of these GetUp! numpties that run around protesting might be fooled by Senator McKim, but why don't they find out the real facts and not take the word of Senator McKim, who has a clear personal interest in this? I often wonder just how much the people smugglers donate to the Greens political party at election time, because every one of these illegal maritime arrivals was paying the people smugglers $15,000 per person. They're hardly poor people. That's in addition to the airfare to Indonesia. Senator McKim goes up there and gives these people false hope. He tells them that, if they protest enough, they might eventually get into Australia, but they will not get into Australia. They should know that. They have wonderful accommodation facilities, with food, water, clothing, electricity and air conditioning, just around the corner. But don't take my word for it; go and read the decision of the Supreme Court of Papua New Guinea, which made findings of fact that there was no case for those people to stay there; there was nothing holding them there; there were other perfectly good facilities, with food, water, shelter and clothing, just around the corner.

It would help if some of the people there weren't alleged to have committed sexual offences on under-aged children there. That has upset some of the locals; I know that. But the majority of those there are not in that category and they are free to come and go. In fact, as someone said in the newspaper in PNG while unfortunately I just happened to be there last week, Senator McKim, these people have actually been moving from this site to these other sites for the last three years, walking back and forth quite safely with no threat to their lives or persons. All of the facilities are there and available.

I cannot believe how Greens political party members can tell blatant lies about the situation there when it is there for anyone to see.