Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of answers to questions without notice asked by Senators Fisher and Cash.

On 23 April 2003, Ms Gillard in her capacity as shadow minister for population and immigration issued the following media statement: ‘Another boat on the way, another policy failure.’

In the media release, Ms Gillard stated:

Reports today that yet another boat of Vietnamese asylum seekers is on its way to Australia is a stark reminder that the Howard Government policy is not working.

She also said:

Only Labor has a comprehensive policy to deal with asylum seekers and refugees ... The Government’s plan on asylum seekers is simply to engage in policy on the run.

The ‘another boat, another policy failure’ media release was in addition to similar comments made by Ms Gillard in the parliament at the time commenting on the arrival of just the second boat under the Howard government.

If the now Prime Minister of Australia wants to talk about policy failure, I suggest that she look at the Labor government’s abysmal record when it comes to protecting Australia’s borders. This abysmal record has been well and truly exacerbated since Ms Gillard took over from Mr Rudd. Forget ‘another boat, another policy failure’ because what we now have under the Gillard Labor government is not another boat; it is another detention centre.

Labor’s complete and utter failure to properly control our borders is reflected in the latest boat arrival. We now have a record number of boats arriving in Australia: 110 boats have arrived in Australia under Labor—and that is only in 2010. We have reached a record of 5,523 people arriving in boats in Australian waters under the Gillard Labor government.

I have to quote from Labor’s 2003-04 response to the budget statement where they proudly dictated to the people of Australia: F is for fail. I can tell Ms Gillard, the now Prime Minister, that she gets a big F when it comes to border protection. The Gillard government is a complete failure when it comes to protecting Australia’s borders.

Under the Gillard Labor government now more than ever people smugglers are dictating who comes to this country and under what terms. Christmas Island is now full. Labor are now opening detention centre after detention centre, and we know from all of the comments from the local communities that it is without any consultation with them.

Universal offshore processing is now history under Labor. Asylum seekers are being sent to the mainland in chartered secret flights at night when they should be sent home. Detainees are escaping from detention centres, and what does the government do? It attempts to counter all of these policy failures with a massive wall of spin. Australians deserve better when it comes to border protection. What does Labor do despite its continual policy failure, despite its failure the halt the arrival of boats. Its answer is this: we will just provide more beds. Now there is a policy response for you.

Since Labor was reappointed, an extra 3,300 beds have been announced by the Gillard Labor government. Ms Gillard needs to ask herself this question: when will the Labor Party wake up and realise that opening more beds will not stop the boats? Perhaps the Prime Minister of Australia can tell the people of Australia why the people smugglers will stop bringing people to Australia when the Gillard Labor government’s answer to its failure on border protection is to merely open up more beds. On this scorecard, Labor gets a great big F. (Time expired)

Kate Lundy (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I note with great interest that the coalition members tend to get a bit excited about this issue—in fact the surge of adrenalin that ripples through the opposition benches as they bounce up and down on their seats asking questions in relation to asylum seekers, I think, is highly unbecoming of the opposition and defies the seriousness of the issue that we are contending with.

I think it is also worth noting that I listened carefully to Senator Cash’s contribution today and there was nothing in her statement that offered a policy from the coalition. They are happy to criticise the government but are still only capable of flinging slogans, the latest being this F for failure. I am sure they are hoping for a newspaper headline somewhere.

Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Capital F for failure, and in neon lights!

Kate Lundy (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And, as Senator Cash says, that would be with neon lights. This shows the shallowness of the approach, and there is not one Australian who does not understand that we are facing a very difficult challenge. We have faced that challenge for many years now, and one thing the Labor government will not do is indulge in some of the trashy sloganeering that we experienced during the election campaign and that we are dealing with now. It has been thrown across the chamber in question time.

It is important to go through the facts. On 18 October the Prime Minister and the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship announced the commissioning of two new detention facilities to house irregular maritime arrivals: firstly, a facility for up to 1,500 single men at Northam in Western Australia—and, as my colleague Senator Carr took pains to point out in his response to questions today, at the suggestion of the Liberal Premier of Western Australia—and, secondly, a facility for up to 400 people in family groups, including children, at Inverbrackie in South Australia. The government has also announced expansions to accommodate unaccompanied minors and people in family groups and has identified two contingency sites. These announcements allow for the decommissioning of less suitable temporary accommodation, which the coalition has also criticised, so I would have expected some acknowledgement of the fact that we are ensuring that appropriate accommodation is available to these people.

Another point I would like to make is that the Prime Minister and the minister also announced an expansion of the use of the minister’s residence determination powers to enable placement of unaccompanied minors and vulnerable families into community detention placements on a case-by-case basis through existing powers under the Migration Act. These announcements recognise the importance of balancing mandatory detention of unauthorised arrivals with the humane treatment of those fleeing persecution and seeking protection in Australia. It is important at this point to remind everybody listening to this debate that last year Australia received 0.6 per cent of the world’s asylum seekers and that refugees, including those referred by UNHCR for resettlement, represent only eight per cent of our migrant intake. I further point out that people arriving by boat are less than 1.5 per cent of this intake. So we are talking about a relatively small number of people, despite, as I said, the rather unbecoming excitement across the chamber as they try to whip up fear associated with the boat arrivals. It is important to keep it all in a realistic perspective.

I would also like to touch on the point about consultation with the communities. I certainly understand and appreciate the uncertainty within local communities at Woodside and Northam, but I reiterate that the department and the government are committed to working through all of those issues raised. They are establishing community reference groups at Northam and Woodside, and these reference groups will be important mechanisms in managing the implementation of the new facilities. Senior departmental officials attended a full meeting of the Adelaide Hills Council on the 19th, and they had a town hall style meeting at Woodside on 21 October. The issues that were raised have been responded to by the government and the assurances that the minister has provided, as you have heard from Senator Carr, have been provided to those communities, particularly in relation to housing, security and health and other government services.

In conclusion, there is a system in place to respond to the situation we are facing with irregular maritime arrivals. It is a challenging one for the whole nation, but I would expect less unbecoming excitement across the chamber when dealing with— (Time expired.)

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

I will try not to be as droning as that, and liven the debate up a bit. Regardless of all of the pre-election commitments of the Labor government, all of the spin and con on this issue, it has reached a new level of crisis. We have now reached a record number of boat arrivals—I would call them ‘illegal boat arrivals’, and I would debate that very point—in this country for one year, and we still have two months to go. It is likely to break all records, and it is likely to flow over into 2011. Does anyone really think that the boats are going to stop under the current policies?

The previous speaker, Senator Lundy, and the representative for the minister in this chamber, Senator Carr—and there is an insult in itself, I should add, before I get to my very point. I am going to distract myself! Senator Evans, the Leader of the Government in the Senate, as failed a minister as he was in this particular issue, as embarrassing as he was, was dumped aside and for whom? For Senator Carr to be the spokesman here in the Senate! Talk about adding insult to injury. And Senator Carr, like Senator Lundy, hid behind a mass of statistics to hide the reality of this issue. I know the others from the other side are always latching on to statistics to spin their story. They say that under the previous government there were arrivals in the thousands and, in the year 2001-02, there were over 5,000—there were some 5,516, an enormous number. And that is true. The Howard government did face a surge of boat arrivals in this country, but we acted to stop them. We did it not by one or two measures, but by a series of tough measures on the grounds of national security and quarantine. It was expected of any government. It is a base responsibility of a government. And in the year after 2002, there were zero boats. Now that we have broken the record of the Howard government—we have now had 5,553 in this year alone—does anyone ever think there will be zero boats next year under the current policies? There will not be, and yet the Prime Minister rolled the previous Prime Minister—Senator Ludwig, you were a party to that.

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

That is not true.

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

You are not going to deny it, are you? You were up to your neck in it. You were going to be a lot tougher on this issue, but Mr Rudd was not tough on this issue at all. We have heard nothing but con and spin. You are now breaking all records. The biggest insult, as I said, is that Senator Carr could not get out of the chamber quick enough today. This is the first real opportunity since the new parliament convened that we have had to debate the issue in this chamber, be it during question time or when taking note of answers to questions, but Senator Carr would not stay back to debate the issue of his new responsibilities. This is the contempt that they are showing.

Earlier during this debate I happened to hear an interjection from across the table. I do not know who else heard it. Senator Cash was speaking at the time, so she probably did not hear it, but I heard it. I will not say who said it, but it was along the lines of: ‘Where are your Christian values in that?’ It is typical of the Labor Party to play that hypocritical moral Christian card. I pose these moral questions to the other side and to the senator who will follow me in this debate. Is it you?

Annette Hurley (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes.

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

I pose these questions to you on those moral grounds. Answer these instead of taking the high moral ground and playing the Christian card as you would have it. Where is the morality in giving succour to the people smugglers? Where is the morality in encouraging desperate asylum seekers to make that perilous journey? Where is the morality in soft laws that encourage people to cross that perilous sea when we know that so many men, women and children do not make it? Where is the morality in delaying or preventing those in refugee camps overseas coming to this country? Ask the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, who called boat arrivals ‘queue jumpers’. They are not my words; they are his words. How are you fulfilling the responsibility you have to the Australian people with regard to border security? Why don’t you answer those questions? Why doesn’t the person who made the interjection come back and answer those moral questions? (Time expired)

Annette Hurley (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have no intention of answering Senator McGauran’s questions. I notice he is not becoming any more statesmanlike in his declining months in the Senate. What I would like to say, however, is that I am very pleased that the government is now fulfilling the policy to keep children out of detention. I will be pleased to see positive measures being put in place to see this happen over the coming months. People in this place on both sides of the chamber have said that they do not want to see children in detention. Whether they are behind razor wire on Christmas Island or in tents on Christmas Island does not matter: children should not be treated in that fashion. It has been well agreed that that is the case, yet, when the government puts in place positive measures to ensure that it does not happen, we hear complaints from the other side about consultation and the manner in which it is done and no cooperation whatsoever with this policy move that the government has made.

One of the areas to which families with children will be sent is Inverbrackie, near Woodside, just outside Adelaide. It is a beautiful area with a close-knit community, and people in this area do not want their lifestyle compromised. Fair enough, but the arrival of 400 family groups, mostly women and children, will not overwhelm that country lifestyle in the Adelaide Hills, particularly given that the government has pledged an amount of money to ensure that health and education services are well maintained in that area to cope with the new arrivals. It has been widely reported that some members of the community are unhappy about the arrivals, but I have met many refugees in my time as a member of parliament and most of these asylum seekers who come by boat will be given refugee status. Most of the people coming to Inverbrackie, near Woodside, will be given refugee status. This will be the beginning of their time in Australia. I am convinced that most—not all, because that would be unrealistic, but most—of those people will make a solid contribution to Australian life.

The sooner we get people, particularly children, out of detention and start them on their lives in Australia the better the contribution that they will make. It quite possibly is the case that people from Woodside have not come across refugees very often. They may not understand the kinds of people who have desperately fled conflict in their own countries and come to Australia to seek a better life, predominantly for their children. When in Woodside those children will be going to schools to learn English as well as possible, if they do not already speak it, and making the best they can of their lives, to fulfil the faith that their parents have shown in them and to also say thank you to the Australian community.

Our Lieutenant Governor in South Australia, Hieu Van Le, came on a boat from Vietnam. He is a man who has made his way in society and is well recognised and well liked. He has said over and over again that he is grateful for being taken in by Australia at a time when his family were in desperate need. It will be no different with this group of 400 people in Woodside.

I would have thought that in this case the government might have got a bit more support from around the chamber for that kind of initiative. It is a realistic, sensible, pragmatic policy to move family groups out of detention to enable them to begin their lives in the Australian community. I am very pleased to see it happen and I am sure that, after a while, the people of Woodside will begin to see that it only benefits their community and broader society. It will be a great advantage to South Australia, which has constantly said that it wants to keep up its numbers of immigrants and get people into the jobs that South Australia needs to fill in order to prolong growth and continue its expansion and economic development.

Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Hurley’s presentation this afternoon on this motion to take note of answers was yet another clear indication of a Labor government policy in absolute disarray. We heard Senator Hurley talk about cooperation and consultation and yet only minutes earlier we heard her colleague Senator Carr deriding West Australian Premier Barnett, who tried to do exactly that, aware of the continuing failure of this government in all of its activities associated with asylum seekers. Premier Barnett—desperately concerned about the welfare of people in Leonora—when asked by the then minister, Minister Evans, offered the concept that Northam, close to Perth, a facility owned by the Australian Army, might be suitable for a small number of asylum seekers, as families, up to 500 maximum. But what do we now see? This afternoon we saw Senator Carr trying to explain away the fact that he is putting 1,500 young, single men into that facility, a disused Army facility in Northam, without any consultation with the Northam community—of which, I am very proud to say, I was a member for many, many years. Those 1,500 people will not have smiles on their faces when they realise the temperature in those old Army Nissen huts gets up to 44 and 46 degrees in our summertime! What a tragedy it was that the community was not made aware.

What a tragedy it is that we are seeing such duplicity and lies from this government. Senator Evans lost the portfolio and the new Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Mr Bowen, has already abdicated his responsibility. Only two weeks ago the shadow minister and the shadow parliamentary secretary, sitting in front of me, visited the detention centre in Derby. In very, very wise questioning, Senator Cash asked last week in estimates, ‘Is it not the case that you are intending to go up to 3,000 people at the Derby detention centre?’ ‘No, no, no, Senator; there will be a maximum of 1,200,’ they said. In estimates the other day, Senator Cash showed a photograph of recently filled-in trenches in an added area of stage 3 of the Curtin detention centre, which we were told had no application at all and there were to be no more people. I heard from an associate in Perth whilst estimates was on that a DIAC official instructed the workers to fill in the trenches containing sewage, electricity, water and other services because the shadow minister and the shadow parliamentary secretary were in attendance. Further evidence: in the middle of the wet season, you could see the fresh tyre marks of the vehicles filling in those trenches. I challenge the minister to come into this place tomorrow and tell us that they are not intending to increase the facilities at Derby. It is an absolute disgrace. And we hear senators say that there is no cooperation.

Those in refugee camps overseas would be dismayed to learn today that Senator Hurley has told us that these people in South Australia and in Western Australia will be looking to enjoy the facilities and the services of this country. It suggests to all of us that the decision has already been made; that they have already been processed and are already on their way into this community. What about those who have legitimately applied for asylum in this country—remembering again that, on a per capita basis, we are the second most generous country in the world when it comes to accepting asylum seekers? But all of the pull factors are alive and well. The comments of this new Gillard government about some solution based in Timor-Leste and the fact that we are opening up these facilities as quickly as is possible for the asylum seekers here say to us that those people who are waiting in African and other camps are fools, are idiots, to have believed that the Australian government would actually give them the priority which they richly deserve.

So we have the scenario, unfortunately, of this government failing, being lost and having nowhere to go. The Prime Minister, who was the shadow minister before they came into government, put the policies in place that we see being played out today. Unfortunately, we have a government that has abdicated its responsibility in this area. It is a disgrace.

Question agreed to.