Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by ministers to questions without notice asked by opposition senators today.

What we had again today was a Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs seeking to ensure that a ludicrous proposition would come true. It is almost impossible to believe that we now have a situation where the immigration minister is a proponent of a bill which will discriminate between those who arrive by sea and those who arrive by air. We have a position now where those people who arrive by sea to claim asylum and who are regarded as unlawful noncitizens upon arrival will be taken to offshore processing in Nauru, Manus Island or wherever else the minister can argue for, with conditions that we do not yet know, where they will not be able to have a review by the RRT, and they will not be able to have all of the things that we provide onshore.

With respect to children in detention, the minister ensured some time ago, with the pushing of her backbench, that children and families in detention would be removed. Now the position is that all of that is to be swept aside. You could call that either disingenuous or mischievous, or say that she has tried to hoodwink the backbench to bring this one back. But let me give a salutary warning: they are not easily hoodwinked. I suspect that she is now in a pack with them, trying to negotiate her way out—and it is not going to be easy. What the minister agreed to last time, and what she has now completely ignored, is that they were assured that those asylum seekers would have Ombudsman oversight, they would be processed within 90 days, and women and children would be out of detention.

That is the criteria, that is the high-water mark, and this minister is not going to be able to meet it. We have heard in the media already today that there is some suggestion that time limits are going to be imposed. But what are they going to be? More importantly, what do you do with those people who are going to be left to languish in Nauru? Currently, there are still two people on Nauru who have received adverse security assessments. What is she going to do with them? Process them within 90 days and return them to Australia?

This minister is making policy on the run. The Migration Amendment (Designated Unauthorised Arrivals) Bill 2006 is really all about the Prime Minister trying to substantiate his position in terms of Indonesia and the West Papuan issue. It is not about good policy, it is not about dealing with unlawful noncitizens arriving in this country, and it is not about dealing with refugees in any fair or sensible way under Australian law. It is all about trying to deal with a flawed domestic policy and with Indonesia’s complaints.

This bill does represent a flawed policy. It is wrong. There is no argument about that. The opposition know that, the minor parties know that and the government backbenchers know that. I suspect the minister is going to come back with a couple of bits to support the backbench. What they should be doing is pressuring her to throw out the bill, because it can be regarded by many as containing serious breaches of Australia’s obligations under international law, particularly under the refugee convention.

This bill also represents deficient foreign policy in terms of the perceived attempt to appease Indonesia over the situation in West Papua. There is no clearer message about this bill than a quote from the committee report that looked into it which said that the bill is ‘an inappropriate response to what is essentially a foreign policy issue’. If this government were serious, it would send its foreign policy minister to Indonesia to talk to them rather than come back with this failed attempt. The legislation is about seeking to pretend Australia has no border and dumping people in other countries. Labor will be voting no on this bill. We think that this bill is irredeemable, that this legislation is wrong in substance and that its motivation is unforgivable. (Time expired)

Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think that was an extraordinarily disappointing contribution from Senator Ludwig, with the greatest respect to him, to the taking note of answers. It just reinforced the point that Labor’s position in relation to this is pure political point scoring at its worst, at the expense of our international relationships. It is populist at best. The Labor Party are trying to wind back the clock. Their hypocrisy in relation to these matters today is breathtaking.

I will mention for Senator Ludwig names such as Ashmore and Cartier Islands and Christmas Island. What did the Labor Party do in 2001? They supported offshore processing. But, all of a sudden, because it is about somewhere else geographically, it is not supported. What gross hypocrisy. I will quote for you, Senator Ludwig, some comments by the member for Brand. I suspect that my senatorial colleague Senator McGauran will probably have some as well.

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will repeat yours.

Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you! In 2001, the member for Brand, Kim Beazley, made his views known ad nauseam in relation to this. On 16 October the member for Brand, the Leader of the Opposition, as he still is now, stated:

Australia can only stop the flood of boats by fixing our relationship with Indonesia. A real solution must be found in Jakarta.

Talking about border protection earlier that day on 6PR, he stated:

... in the end the only solution to the problem that we now confront resides around the relationship that we have with Indonesia and the attitudes that develop in this region to illegal people movement.

Exactly. So what are the Labor Party seeking to do now? They are using the international relationship that Mr Beazley said was so important for some political point scoring. It is gross hypocrisy. I am sure that Senator McGauran will mention the word ‘leadership’, which Mr Beazley mentioned as well. What a gross abrogation of his responsibilities as a leader to behave the way he is at the moment in relation to this matter.

What the Australian people are looking for from the Australian Labor Party, which they have not seen for 10 years, is some leadership in relation to any issue, and none can be more important than our relationship with Indonesia. It needs to be dealt with in a delicate way and leadership needs to be shown. For the Australian Labor Party to allege in the public domain that this matter is about Indonesia is absolutely and totally wrong, and they know it is wrong. As my colleague said, it is un-Australian. It is un-Australian to be using that relationship to score cheap political points.

The Labor Party’s views in relation to the issue of offshore processing, although they had to be dragged kicking and screaming to give them, are well known to every person in this chamber, to every person in the other place and to every member of the Australian community. They will see them, quite rightly, as being absolutely duplicitous in relation to this matter. I cannot believe that Senator Ludwig, in what was a very poor response to a very serious question, can still pursue the line that this is in some way kowtowing to Indonesia. This is about maintaining the integrity of a policy that the Australian Labor Party have themselves signed up to, with the greatest reluctance, because they were forced to do so by the Australian community, who can see the fallacy of what they were doing. (Time expired)

Ruth Webber (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Ever since the Prime Minister infamously declared that he would decide who would come to this country and the circumstances in which they would come, we as a country have lurched from one crisis to another when it comes to immigration policy. Is it any wonder at all that we face the problems that we currently do? The Howard government have a hardline approach that does not allow for any flexibility. Under their proposals, there will be no appeal to Australian law, because they are effectively going to put Australia outside of Australian law. This latest move is an attempt to remove the Australian mainland from our very own migration laws. How ridiculous is that?

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is Tasmania part of Australia?

Ruth Webber (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As Senator Sterle says, we need to qualify for the Tasmanians whether Tasmania is going to be part of this ridiculous parade of folly. What have we had under this current government’s watch? We have had Tampa, we have had ‘children overboard’ and we have had the SIEVX. We have had Cornelia Rau and Vivian Alvarez, and the scandal of six inmates with severe mental illnesses compulsorily detained in Baxter even though the government promised that that would no longer happen. It is an absolute outrage. Now the government complains when they have been hoisted with their own petard. They have given us their latest instalment of migration changes which pander or kowtow to the Indonesians over the West Papuans.

That is the essential dilemma that the government have. They have told us that they are tough on border security. They have told us that they are going to be tough on illegal arrivals—even though you must admit that it was not until talkback radio raised the issue that the government did anything. But they promised that they would be tough. They told us that they would decide who would come here and the circumstance under which they would come. We now see from evidence before Senate committees and from the Palmer report that they have not shared the full story with the parliament or the Australian public. We have lurched from one stuff-up to another, with bungles and overzealous applications of policies bringing us to this current fiasco—policies that allow a department to deport our own citizens.

Then the Indonesian government complained about 42 asylum seekers. So what do we have to do? We have to change our migration laws so Australia is no longer part of the Australian migration zone; so Australia does not have a migration zone—except perhaps if Tasmania is in it. This is a pathetic excuse for a system. The fact is that the government gagged debate in the other place last week. They are still struggling to cobble together a deal so that they can introduce the legislation in this place, because they cannot even convince their own members and senators to support this ludicrous, ideologically driven and crazy proposition.

It is now time for this government to front up for once and do the decent thing. They need to concede that after 10 long years the system is broken and they need to fix it. And fixing it does not mean excising Australia from its own migration zone; it means coming up with an immigration system that has decency and fairness at its core and then implementing it in a non-partisan, non-ideologically driven way. At the moment, all we have time and time again are examples of this government coming in here unable to explain exactly what is going on.

After this proposed legislation goes through—if it goes through; if you can ever get the numbers in the party room by making people compromise on their principles or by coming up with a decent set of proposals—there will be no more legislative excuses. You will have to front up to the fact that you cannot administer it and that you are not up to the job. This portfolio has always come in for its fair share of criticism over the years, but nothing like what we are seeing now. This is complete incompetence. It is a complete shambles when you have an administrative system that detains those with mental illness and deports Australian citizens, and then you want to excise Australia from its own migration zone. (Time expired)

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is something very telling about the debate today in question time and, in fact, the debate we had all last week. As we know, question time all last week—and it looks like the same pattern will be followed this week—was focused on this issue of border protection. It has been a pretty weak but nevertheless concerted effort against Senator Vanstone. But there is something very telling about that. The Labor Party are making their centrepiece the industrial relations legislation, an issue that has been covered in the media week in and week out, and yet not one single question has been asked in relation to industrial relations—not one. Senator Abetz, the lonely minister, has sat there waiting for a question from the other side on the real issue of the day. We have already settled on border protection, and the other side know that. If they dare go to the next election on this issue rather than on industrial relations, we will settle it like we did in 2001.

The really telling issue here—

Ruth Webber (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Webber interjecting—

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Webber, can I pick you up on an issue? Don’t you come into this parliament and hang the SIEVX on this government. That is an outrageous claim. That was a tragedy that all confess and admit was the doing of people smugglers. You ought to be ashamed of pointing the finger at this government. In fact, you ought to apologise about that SIEVX claim. What a disgrace; what an opportunist. What a pathetic debate you ran in relation to that. The real point—

Opposition Senators:

Opposition senators interjecting—

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The two union men over there have not got the courage to defend the Labor position in the industrial relations debate. They have not got the courage to stand up in here and tell the public and the parliament why they are going to abolish the unfair dismissal laws and why they are going to abolish the secondary boycott laws. That is a hidden agenda. They are going to abolish the secondary boycott laws to give the Maritime Workers Union all that power back. Why are they going to abolish AWAs? There has been no debate on that in this parliament. How pathetic.

Instead, they rely on what they think is an old faithful—border protection. Let me tell you about border protection. In the national interest, the government is bringing in this legislation.

Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Ronaldson interjecting—

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What my colleague invited me to do is to quote their own leader on this very issue to point out their utter opportunism in attacking this government for kowtowing to Indonesia—which is absolutely wrong and which has been rejected. I do not think that they have convinced anyone but their own side in regard to that. Let us quote what the Labor Party’s leader, Mr Beazley, the member for Brand, said in regard to relationships with Indonesia on this very issue. On 16 October, he said:

Australia can only stop the flood of boats by fixing our relationship with Indonesia. A real solution must be found in Jakarta.

In talking about border protection earlier in that same period, he stated:

In the end, the only solution to the problem we now confront resides around the relationship that we have with Indonesia and the attitudes that develop in this region to illegal people-smuggling.

He went on to say:

What we need to do is exercise a bit of leadership, because we want circumstances where people who come here illegally go back to the point they came from and get processed there.

He continued:

That is the true disincentive for people coming down in the way in which they have been doing. Everything else has been tried. Let’s try that.

In other words, his solution was to tow the boats back to West Papua, Indonesia or wherever they came from. That quote is an indication that he wanted to tow the boats back—but, of course, we all know that was an opportunist quote at the time. We all know that what you are running in here is also opportunist. We reject the flimsy arguments and the opportunism that the opposite side walk in here with with regard to border protection. We are acting in the national interest.

Steve Hutchins (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to take dispassionate note of Senator Vanstone’s answer to my question this afternoon in relation to the current debate on refugees. I would also like to comment on some of the statements made by Senator Ronaldson and just lately by Senator McGauran. I remind the chamber that we on this side of parliament had to hear ad nauseam only a few years ago the Prime Minister—and Senator Webber rightly quoted him—saying, ‘We will decide who comes to this country and we will decide the circumstances under which they come.’ Yet one could hardly not come to the conclusion in relation to the events over the last few months that, as a result of significant pressure from the Indonesian government, we are about to embark on a course that will change our migration/refugee policy.

Last week, you, of all people, Mr Deputy President Hogg, would be aware that there was significant lobbying done in relation to the Australian Capital Territory’s civil union legislation. Concern was expressed by a number of people who were uncomfortable with that legislation and about how to vote on the disallowance of it. During the lead-up to that debate, I received not one representation from a member of any particular church or faith. I never received a phone call from a bishop, a priest, a nun or a brother to lobby me one way or the other on that particular piece of legislation. However, since it became clear that the government was going to introduce this proposed migration legislation, I have been lobbied significantly by members of the clergy of all Christian denominations, not just my own faith of Catholicism, who are extremely concerned about the direction the government is taking with the proposed asylum seeker laws.

I would like to remind the chamber what the granting of asylum is about. It is meant to be a humanitarian act; it is not meant to be a political statement. If the government go back to that single premise, that is where they can probably extricate themselves from the difficulty that they have got into at the moment. We have all seen the report of the Senate Legal and Constitutional Legislation Committee and its recommendations: unanimous in the position they are taking on this proposed migration legislation. They say that the proposal is irredeemable in its current form. Why wouldn’t it be?

As I have said, I have had representations from various church groups, let alone all the other groups in our Commonwealth, about this proposed legislation. The legislation places asylum seekers beyond the reach of Australian law. Once again, it puts women and children in detention. It allows for indefinite detention. There will no longer be, as I understand it, case-managed mental health. There will be no professional assistance available to those people. There will be no visitors or charitable or religious assistance available to them. The Commonwealth Ombudsman loses oversight when they are sent to these islands for processing. There is no access for these men, women and children to the Refugee Review Tribunal or Australian courts for a judicial review. The people who are processed offshore are treated differently.

We are signatories to the 1951 convention on the status of refugees. We are one of the countries who signed it in that period. Nauru is not a signatory to that protocol. We do not even know what visa conditions these people will be subject to when they go offshore to these islands. They are subject to those islands’ visa conditions, not anything that we put there. In fact, I think it was only reported last week in the Age that ASIO agents tried to go to Nauru and they were refused entry. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.