Marielle Smith (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I also rise to take note of Minister Cash's explanation of unanswered questions on notice, or, should I say, I take note of a non-explanation regarding unanswered questions on notice. I am relatively new to this place, but it doesn't really seem like an unreasonable request to me that these questions are answered within 30 days. These are pretty basic questions and, as Senator Keneally said, they're questions of basic mathematics. So why aren't the government answering our questions? What is it that they're trying to hide? Not answering questions put to the government through correct channels in this place says more about their answers than their leaked talking points do. Maybe the government are trying to hide the fact that this financial year an average of 65 people per day made a claim for asylum under the Liberals, or maybe they're trying to hide the fact that a staggering 4,000 airplane people made a claim for protection between 1 July 2019 and 31 August 2019. That's 4,000 people in just 62 days under this government.

The government's own leaked talking points on this issue state, 'The government is focusing resources both on and offshore to prevent unmeritorious protection claims,' but they say they have stopped the boats. So what offshore protection are they focusing on? Are they focusing on it at all? From 1 July 2014 to 31 August 2019, 95,000 protection visa applications were lodged by persons who entered Australia lawfully by air. Some of our regional towns don't have that population. It's a population that could almost fill the MCG or, more relevantly to people in my state, they could fill two Adelaide Ovals, and yet the government's leaked talking points state that the number of people who apply for protection is declining. In 2018-19, the number of onshore protection claims fell by 12 per cent—a result of the government's focus on stopping unmeritorious claims. Ninety-five thousand are a result of the government's focus. I think it's time for the government to visit the optometrist, because their focus is completely out of whack. But, more than that, the government claim that, between 2018 and 2019, the number of onshore protection claims fell by 12 per cent, but, when you look back at the breakdown of figures per year since 2014, what you can actually see is that under this government the figures rose substantially every year and there was merely a very small decrease between 2018-19. The breakdown shows that, between 2014 and 2015, there were over 8,000 persons. The next year the number jumped to over 12,000, the year after it was 18,000 and in 2017-18 the number of people who made a claim for protection soared to a staggering 27,000.

It must be said that the majority of the people applying for asylum are not genuine refugees. We are not talking about vulnerable stateless people who need our protection; we are talking about people who are exploiting a loophole in this government's so-called tough border protection to seek asylum in Australia illegally. The government can try and blur the figures all they like. They can skew the figures to their benefit as much as they like, but they can't hide from the fact that under this government the exploitation of Australia's visa and migration system is absolutely out of control, and the government know this.

The now Assistant Minister for Customs, Community Safety and Multicultural Affairs, Jason Wood MP, flagged the exploitation of Australia's visa and migration system earlier this year. In the last parliament, Mr Wood was the chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Migration. The committee handed down its report on the inquiry into the efficacy of current regulation of Australian migration and education agents. Wood made the following comments, as chair, in the forward:

Organised crime and illegitimate labour hire companies are using this loophole to bring out illegal workers who are often vulnerable and open to exploitation. This represents an orchestrated scam that enables these criminal elements to exploit foreign workers in Australia until their claims are finalised.

So, the government can pretend they don't know where their focus is and they can pretend the figures don't exist or, at least, the figures they don't like—but the government cannot hide from the fact that they knew about this issue and they knew the extent of this issue. They have lost control of our borders.

Of the protection visa applications decided by the department between 1 July 2014 and 19 August 2019, over 60,000 people, or 84 per cent to be exact, were refused. The government like to stand up in this place and dismiss genuine refugees who come to this country to seek protection for their families and hope for a better life, but they're more than happy to allow tens of thousands of people who are not genuine refugees to exploit our immigration system via the air. Worst of all, the government know all of this and are not telling us because they know the Australian people would not accept a government that has lost control of its borders and put our national security at risk. Both the Minister for Home Affairs, Mr Peter Dutton, and the immigration minister, David Coleman, have confirmed this. Peter Dutton has said that, between 2014-15 and 2017-18, 64,362 people arrived by air and subsequently applied for protection. Over the same period, 7,600 were granted a protection visa, which is a refusal rate of 90 per cent. And David Coleman has said:

… people who arrive lawfully by plane, we obviously know who they are. They have a lawful visa. And in terms of the people who actually apply for protection when they get here, more than 90 per cent are rejected and the number of people who are applying … so far this year is down by about 20 per cent. So it's coming down the number of people are applying onshore for protection. So, for the Labor Party to raise issues related to protection visas is ridiculous. Their legacy in unlawful boat arrivals, where our Border Force officers were required to go out onto the high seas to place themselves at risk and of course, the families themselves placing themselves at risk, that was an appalling situation. It was a humanitarian catastrophe. And there is absolutely no comparison to other forms of applications for protection.

That's what David Coleman said.