David Feeney (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today is the first anniversary of the election of the Rudd Labor government. The past year has seen an extraordinary transformation from the divisiveness and negativity of the last years of the Howard regime, with its crude wedge politics designed to pit Australian against Australian, to a new politics of optimism and unity of purpose.

On top of the many festering and long-neglected problems we have inherited from the Howard government, Australia is now facing acute economic problems as a result of the failed policies of the Bush administration in the United States. We are indeed lucky to have a strong leadership team, led by Kevin Rudd, in charge at such a time. The chickens are coming home to roost after 11 years of complacency and neglect by the previous government, but the Rudd government is giving Australia strong and decisive leadership at this perilous time.

Tonight I want to talk about one area of policy that has been completely transformed under the Rudd government, and that is the area of immigration policy. I noticed that none of the report cards on the Rudd government published in the media over the weekend mentioned the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Senator Evans, or the achievements of the government in this very important area. But it should not be allowed to pass without comment that, in the first year of the Rudd Labor government, Senator Evans has efficiently and effectively implemented Labor policy and established a fairer, more effective and more humane immigration policy.

Under the Howard government, immigration policy was seen mainly as a political wedge to be used against the Labor Party. In 2001, as we all recall, the Howard government won an election which they would otherwise have lost by exploiting anti-immigration hysteria in the wake of the Tampa affair. All of this has been detailed in the Howard Years program showing on the ABC, tonight’s episode of which finished only moments ago.

Seldom have we seen a more disgraceful performance, a performance more harmful to Australia’s international reputation and social cohesion, than we saw in that campaign. Yet, far from being ashamed of themselves for whipping up xenophobia for their own shallow party-political ends, the Liberal Party were so proud of it that in 2007 they tried to do it again—this time using the case of the unfortunate Dr Haneef to again try and stir up anti-immigration sentiment. But this did not revive their sagging electoral fortunes. Indeed, they handled the case so incompetently that it blew up in their faces.

Even when the Howard government was not exploiting immigration as an election-winning gimmick, they were making a hash of immigration policy. Who can forget the disgraceful case of Cornelia Rau, an Australian permanent resident, a person with a mental illness, who was unlawfully detained in Baxter Detention Centre for 10 months; or Vivian Alvarez Solon, an Australian citizen who was unlawfully deported to the Philippines for four years and kept there even after the government knew she had been wrongly deported.

The worst aspect of the former government’s policy was the so-called Pacific solution. This entailed dumping everyone who attempted to enter Australia without authorisation in desolate detention centres on remote Pacific islands, and leaving them there to rot in the hope that they would despair of ever having their claims processed and agree to go back to where they came from. Apart from the inhumanity of this policy, it should not be forgotten that this was very expensive. The Howard government spent nearly $310 million between 2001 and 2008 to run the detention centres on Nauru and Manus Island. For all the Howard government’s bluster—’We will decide who comes to Australia’—most of those unfortunate people were eventually determined to be genuine refugees and resettled in Australia. The Pacific solution had nothing to do with running an effective and humane, let alone cost-effective, immigration system. It did not even have much to do with border protection. It had a lot to do with politics and political advantage.

Labor came to office pledging to end the Pacific solution, and we have done just that. I commend the minister for his prompt action in ending this blot on Australia’s reputation. We have also abolished the Howard government’s temporary protection visas, which were, as the minister recently said, ‘inhumane, unfair and ineffective’. TPVs actually encouraged illegal immigration. Because people on TPVs had no access to family reunion, their spouses and children were most likely to risk their lives trying to get to Australia in leaky boats. Again, contrary to the line put out by the Howard government, most of those here on TPVs were eventually found to be genuine refugees and were granted permanent residence when eventually their claims were properly assessed.

So what has the Rudd government done since coming to office? In March the minister announced that he would personally review the cases of all 72 people who had been in detention for more than two years. Of those 72 cases, 32 have now been found to be genuine asylum seekers and have been granted visas. Another 13 have been found to be ineligible and have been deported. Only 17 cases are still being processed. These statistics show that the Howard government was not only cynical and inhumane in its treatment of people who had genuine claims to residence but also dilatory in removing those who did not have a genuine claim. That is a critical point. Apparently it suited the Howard government’s purposes to have these people kept indefinitely on Nauru or Manus rather than either letting them into Australia or sending them home. They were political pawns.

The minister recently reported that the total number of people in immigration detention is now 279, including 44 in community detention. This compares with 449 people in immigration detention when Labor came to office a year ago. Of those currently in detention, only half are asylum seekers. Under Labor, detention will only be used as a last resort and only for the shortest possible period. It is of course impossible to abolish immigration detention altogether. There will always be a certain number of people who are in Australia illegally and must be detained while their cases are processed. But, under Labor, detention will no longer be used indiscriminately, arbitrarily or for political purposes. The minister said recently:

… this illustrates a fundamental difference between this government and the last. We firmly believe that we can have strong and effective border security while also treating people seeking our protection with fairness and humanity.

None of this means that the Rudd government has gone soft on people-smuggling or illegal immigration, as those opposite will no doubt be keen to allege. But it does mean that we think the best way to tackle people-smuggling is not by demonising or punishing those who are unfortunate, desperate or deluded enough to believe that paying a people smuggler is a good idea. It means that we think cooperating with the UNHCR, the International Organisation for Migration and our regional neighbours, particularly Indonesia and PNG, is the best way to cut off people-smuggling at its source.

International people-smuggling is still a big business in many parts of the world. Every year, thousands of people risk their lives trying to enter European countries such as Spain, Italy and Greece illegally. But in this part of the world we have seen no revival of people-smuggling. This is because we are cooperating effectively with our neighbours and international organisations to deter people-smuggling and to provide genuine asylum seekers with a legal path to asylum in Australia, and because we are swiftly removing those who have no legitimate claim. I congratulate the minister on all of this. In one year he has gone a long way to repairing the damage to our immigration program and our international reputation. That no doubt is why the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, recently described Australia as a model asylum country.

I will finish with a plea that the minister give serious consideration to the issue of detention debts. I have recently become aware of the case of a Pakistani man who was detained after overstaying his student visa. He is now trying to pay off a debt to the Department of Immigration and Citizenship of more than $60,000, in the hope of one day being able to apply to again come to Australia. He works as a cook and has a wife and child. He is paying off his debt at the rate of $100 a week from his very modest income. The debt of $60,000 arose from a combination of detention fees and legal fees incurred while he was in detention in Australia. It is deplorable that a wealthy country such as Australia is insisting on recovering a debt from someone in these circumstances. The minister said recently:

This government is acutely aware of the inequities and injustices that flow from the detention debt policy. I have been actively exploring the resolution of that issue.

I am encouraged by this comment from the minister, and I urge him to continue to look for that resolution.