Gary Humphries (ACT, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence Materiel) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

At the request of Senator Fifield, I move:

That the Senate notes the failure of the Gillard Labor Government to maintain the confidence of the Australian people in its ability to protect our borders.

To illustrate the point which this motion is making, I ask senators to cast their minds back to the scene a little over four years ago, when the Howard government relinquished office, with respect to border security and the arrival of unauthorised maritime vessels. Members of this place will recall that at that point in time there were very few boat arrivals. The average number of arrivals each year was something in the vicinity of three boats. The issue had largely gone off the radar of Australians and certainly Australian politicians. The government, which had opened an offshore processing centre on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea, was able to close that centre because it was no longer necessary. The centre at Nauru opened by the government had very few people in it because the number of boats that were arriving necessitated very few people being detained at that centre.

How much difference a short year or so makes. In August 2008 the new Rudd Labor government decided that it would change those settings with respect to migration. The new Rudd Labor government decided that it would allow for the closure of Nauru and allow for processing to resume onshore. It would now use the facility on Christmas Island, built by the previous government and described by the Labor Party in opposition as a white elephant, to start to process boat arrivals. The rest is history. In a little over three years since that policy announcement was made, 12,500-plus people have arrived on over 244 boats, pursuant to the collapse of the government's policy on protecting Australia's borders. We have gross overcrowding at Australia's detention facilities. New facilities have had to be opened onshore. We have seen rioting and disorder at those places. Litigation is besetting the Commonwealth government. There have been a series of unedifying negotiations with other nations to attempt to restore an offshore processing system. Most recently the government, which has comprehensively failed to manage the situation, announced and presented legislation to the parliament to the effect that one solution only was available and would work, and that was the offshore processing in Malaysia of migrants or asylum seekers arriving on this shore. I ask senators to consider what has transpired between the dismantling of the previous government's policy and today. I particularly ask honourable senators to consider how many iterations we have had of this government's policy on border protection and to consider how credible today this government might be on this question.

We were told throughout the period of 2001 to 2007 that offshore processing did not work, that offshore processing was a failure. I recall one particular media release issued circa 2004 by the then shadow minister for immigration, one Julia Gillard, in which the headline read, 'Another boat, another policy failure.' It was a media release issued, incidentally, when the second boat for the year had arrived—shock, horror! Two boats in the course of one year was labelled by the Labor opposition then as policy failure.

We were told that offshore processing would not work and so the government undid offshore processing in August 2008. It became obvious after a short period of time with the surge in boat arrivals that this was not going to work. So in 2010 the new Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, announced that the government would indeed be seeking to restore an offshore processing model and it would be based on an offshore processing centre in East Timor. Of course, it quickly became apparent that East Timor was not signed up to that idea and after a few months of negotiation, if you can call it that, the option fell over.

So it went from, 'There will be no offshore processing,' to, 'Yes, we will have offshore processing.' But the option of East Timor fell over, so the government then started to look further afield. It rejected going to Nauru, where the previous government had a facility—and, indeed, those facilities still exist—because, we were told, Nauru was not a signatory to the UN convention on refugees and therefore an option based on Nauru was unacceptable. The government said, 'We could not go there. They didn't accept civilised values. We couldn't go to Nauru.' So the government looked at other places. It tried to set up a facility on Manus Island. For reasons not entirely clear to anybody, Manus Island appears not to be on the government's agenda at the moment. Eventually, a few months ago, the government announced it was going to adopt the Malaysian solution, that it would go to Malaysia. So it went from a position of saying, 'We don't believe in offshore processing,' to, 'Yes, maybe we do need offshore processing, but it has to be in East Timor,' to, 'Yes, we do want offshore processing, but it should now be on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea,' to, 'No, we cannot go to Nauru and, yes, we must go to Malaysia. Malaysia is not just the best solution available to us but the only solution. No other place is acceptable as a reception point for asylum seekers arriving on Australia's shores. It has to be Malaysia.'

The government comes to this parliament and says, 'After all those iterations of our policy, we have now got it right. We now know what the solution is and you must pass our legislation. Yes, we did tell you that offshore processing did not work, but now we believe that it does. Yes, we did tell you that we as a nation could not possibly deal with a country which has not signed the UN convention on refugees, but now we think that we can.' This government has had no consistency with its position. It has no credibility. It cannot be trusted now to explain to the Australian people how border protection policy has collapsed and collapsed totally. Like freshly caught fish at the bottom of a boat, thrashing about and breathing desperately for life, this government's policy is dying before the eyes of the Australian people. The lack of any vestigial remnants of credibility on this policy is painfully obvious to all who have observed the situation the government has put itself in.

This is reinforced by the Newspoll published earlier this week in which a paltry 17 per cent of Australians expressed confidence in the Labor Party to solve the issue of asylum seekers arriving in Australia. That is an appalling indication of how totally the Australian people's confidence in this government has fallen. Of all the areas of public policy listed in that poll, none recorded a lower level of public confidence than the government's treatment of asylum seekers. For the government to maintain that the parliament must pass this legislation now, given the complete collapse of its credibility in this area, is breathtaking in its audaciousness.

There were other iterations in all of this. At one stage the government promised a coast guard. They were going to protect Australia's borders with coast guard vessels which were going to ensure that somehow these people smugglers would not be able to ply their trade. We learnt that that was going to be based on three vessels. Three vessels were to protect 34,000 kilometres of coastline from the arrival of people by boat. It was such a ridiculous policy. I do not think it even made it to the 2007 election it was so lacking in credibility.

We have in front of us now, amidst the smoky ruins of policies, a policy to send people to Malaysia. The Senate has had the opportunity through its Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee to examine what this option actually means. In examining the evidence, the committee was overwhelmed by the inappropriateness of this option. It was not hard to discern a drift on the part of the witnesses and the submitters to the inquiry because there was only one class of witnesses and submitters—one that said that this option was not going to work. Every single witness and every single submission said the same thing. The result was a report which justifiably came to the conclusion—indeed, on the available evidence must have come to the conclusion—that the option was simply not the right one for Australia to pursue. It was based in part on the evidence of appalling conditions in Malaysia with respect to the treatment of asylum seekers: the mistreatment of those people in a country which does not recognise legal rights for asylum seekers or refugees; the caning of people in those places in cruel conditions; the fact that women often have to sell themselves into prostitution to support their families because they are not legally, as asylum seekers, entitled to work in that country; and other privations and unacceptable conditions which any civilised nation ought to shy away from, not embrace.

That stands in contrast to the proposals that were working on Nauru under the previous government, which the federal coalition would return to if elected to government. If Australia itself were again running the facility on Nauru, as it did under the Howard government, all of those horrendous circumstances prevailing in Malaysia could be avoided.. We could guarantee that people would not be caned, that people would be treated fairly and that there would be proper education, health care and so forth for those detained. But this government persists, or at least we think it persists. We are yet to discover what the government is going to do today. We are aware of rumours that the government's policy is being reconsidered as we speak in this chamber. Perhaps it will not be long before the members of the Labor Party in this place support what I am saying and accept that Malaysia is not the right solution. Who knows? That might be the outcome of a meeting which is underway in the building at the moment.

The government has proffered countless excuses as to why it cannot return to the proven, successful policies of the previous government. The explanation that we could not deal with a country that had not signed the refugee convention fell over some time ago when we discovered that Malaysia would not sign the convention but Nauru would. It is in the process of ratifying it at the moment. We were told that Nauru did not previously work because most people, it was asserted, who were sent to Nauru ended up in Australia as permanent residents anyway. We know that is also not true. We know that assertion excludes those people who were sent to Nauru but were found not to be refugees. That is one of the reasons for sending people to Nauru: so it is easier to ensure that you can process people and exclude from consideration those who are not found to be genuine refugees. Others who were found to be refugees were not sent to Australia. So in fact the total percentage of those who were sent to Nauru who came to Australia as permanent residents was something in the order of 43 per cent.

Whether that figure is high or low enough to satisfy the critics of the Nauru policy is irrelevant because it succeeded at another much more important level. It succeeded because it discouraged the people smugglers. It prevented the people smugglers from being able to offer a product. We know that for a fact because from 2001, when the Pacific solution was implemented, the boat numbers plummeted. As many people arrived in the succeeding six years under the Howard government under this so-called unsuccessful Nauru policy as have arrived in a single month under the failed Rudd-Gillard policy. That is in my view a very clear success. We were told that Nauru was a very expensive option and that it would cost us a lot of money. Towards the end of the period of the Howard government when it was possible to close the Manus Island centre—there were so few boats arriving it was not necessary any longer and there were very few people in Nauru—this policy was costing something in the order of $200 million a year. Today, the policy of this government is costing more than $1 billion a year—$1 billion to handle the government's policy of failure.

I ask honourable senators to put the question to themselves: how much better could Australia do if it spent that $1 billion on other things in relation to the plight of refugees around the world? Imagine if we, by returning to a policy that was not so expensive, could invest that $1 billion in improving conditions in refugee camps, in improving education and health in those places and in dealing with the extreme needs of people in those places, rather than catering exclusively to the clients of people smugglers. Perhaps we could even increase our own humanitarian resettlement program. We would have the support of the Australian public to do that because they would see that we were in control of that policy; we were not victims of circumstance. That is another very important point about why this policy has failed. With that 17 per cent figure attached to the government's policy on asylum seekers, we have seen a collapse in public confidence in the ability of government to handle these issues properly. That sometimes can feed intolerance on the part of Australians towards asylum seekers. That is a very serious concern. It is important for the government to recover control of this system and confidence in its handling of it. The fact that the people of Australia are not confident in this government's handling of this policy is contributing to the problem we see in the Australian community with intolerance towards refugees.

We could measure the extent of the government's failure by those opinion polls, but there is another much more sobering and sadder way of measuring the failure of this government's policy—that is, by the extent of the deaths this policy has led to. It has been reasonably estimated, on the basis of the minister's own estimate of failed journeys from Indonesia and other places, that at least 400 people have died on the seas between Australia and the rest of the world attempting unsuccessfully to reach these shores. We saw some of those people die on our television screens last December when an asylum seeker vessel that was approaching Christmas Island crashed on its shores and 50 lives were lost. As sad as the loss of those lives were, they were not the full extent of the lives lost under this government's policies. There must have been at least another 350 people—probably more—in that category. That is a compelling, powerful reason to end this failed policy.

The Australian people are now hearing the government claim that, for all its different versions of what the right policy is, it has now got it correct. But the more Australians hear about the horrendous implications of sending asylum seekers to Malaysia, the clearer it is that this policy is also not going to work, quite apart from the fact that, under the swap arranged with Malaysia, the 800 people whom we are to send to Malaysia have already arrived in Australia. The quota which justifies Malaysia sending 4,000 people has already been met. So people smugglers who follow these issues would realise that more asylum seekers after that 800 will not be affected by the arrangement. It cannot work; it is doomed to failure. But I do not need to tell the government that. It is smart enough to realise that the Australian public knows that as well. The Australian public knows that this policy is falling apart in front of us. Give it a decent burial is my advice. Put it to rest. Go back to a policy which works and is more humane. It is galling, I know, to have to say that from your own lips, but it is true. It is more humane, it will fix the problem, and it is time that you went back to a policy that works.

Matt Thistlethwaite (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I speak in opposition to this motion on border protection. I do so because this government has done more than any other government in modern history in Australia to protect our nation's borders. This government has done more than any other government in modern history to develop a workable, long-lasting, sustainable, regional solution to what is a very difficult and emotive area of public policy—a solution which, in our view, would prioritise an approach to a humanitarian intake of refugees to our nation. Such an approach would give priority to the principle that the Australian government has the right—as many other nations in the world have—to control our immigration intake. What have we seen from the opposition on this particularly important area of public policy? Nothing more than blatant opportunism and blatant opposition for the sake of opposition—a complete trashing of the notion and the tradition that the government should have the right to control the intake of immigrants to this nation. That is a right which has been established over many, many decades in our great Federation.

The Gillard government is committed to strong border protection and an orderly migration program. That is why we have maintained the excision of offshore islands and maintained an offshore processing regime and mandatory detention of irregular maritime arrivals for rigorous health, security and identity checks. Australia's borders are well managed and they are secure. Labor established the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service to provide a single point of accountability for the 15 government agencies directly and indirectly involved in maritime border security and to ensure that all agencies are coordinated to respond to the full range of border threats. These new arrangements have worked effectively, with better coordination between agencies now guided by Australia's first comprehensive strategic border management plan. This plan ensures that border security agencies operate as a coherent whole working towards joint rather than individual agency priorities.

Labor has invested more than any other government in protecting our borders and detecting unauthorised boats. Over the last two budgets we have invested more than $1.8 billion towards stronger border and aviation security and, indeed, combating people smuggling. Labor has also increased investigatory and intelligence resources in the AFP People Smuggling Strike Team. We funded the Customs and Border Protection Service and the AFP to work with their law enforcement counterparts in countries including Indonesia, Pakistan, Malaysia and Sri Lanka. We have provided $24.8 million to help our regional law enforcement partners stop the business of people smuggling, including extra boat patrols, surveillance aircraft and communications equipment for the Indonesian National Police to detect and disrupt people-smuggling ventures in Indonesian waters.

Under this government, more than 200 people have been arrested and prosecuted in Australia in connection with people-smuggling ventures. That is 200 people who are not involved in this insidious trade of asking vulnerable people to risk their lives on the open ocean. In addition to that, we have had more than 100 arrests in other countries in the region based on the work of our law enforcement agencies in cooperation with those areas. In cooperation with our regional counterparts, Australian agencies have disrupted more than 200 people-smuggling ventures, with more than 5,000 foreign nationals prevented from coming to our shores by illegal means. In 2010, we introduced tough new people-smuggling offences. They included penalties of up to 20 years imprisonment and mandatory minimum terms of up to eight years. We legislated to give ASIO enhanced powers to investigate people smuggling and other serious border security threats and to collect foreign intelligence about people smugglers and their networks. We have also cracked down on remittance dealers being used to finance people smuggling.

We believe in a border protection policy that is an effective deterrent to people smuggling. We believe that to provide an effective deterrent we need to work with our regional partners. We need to establish a regional architecture that ensures that people do not make these dangerous boat journeys and potentially end up on the rocks at Christmas Island. To ensure this we have been working with countries in the region to put in place strong people-smuggling laws. We welcome moves in several countries, including Indonesia, to criminalise people smuggling.

Labor supports strong border protection and increased opportunities for genuine refugees. The focus of our policy is prioritising genuine refugees who have been identified by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, who have been sitting in camps for up to 10 years. Those that have been identified as genuine refugees are the priority of Labor policy. Since 2007 Labor has detected and intercepted more than 99 per cent of boat arrivals before they have reached the mainland. We have overseen the offshore arrests of more than 270 people-smuggling suspects. We have invested in eight new Cape class patrol vessels, strengthening our fleet of 18 ships and 17 aircraft devoted to working on tackling this difficult public policy issue. We have reached agreement with Afghanistan and the UNHCR on returning unsuccessful Afghan asylum seekers. We have worked with the Malaysian, Pakistani, Thai, Indonesian and Sri Lankan police to break up people-smuggling rings.

Importantly, we support genuine refugees. This is evidenced by the fact that Australia will increase its humanitarian visa program to 14,750 people a year should the new legislation be passed. We believe that the claims for protection of those who can afford to pay a people smuggler are no greater than the claims of those who cannot afford to do so.

There are 15 million refugees throughout the world. We need a regional solution to what is very much a regional problem. Australia will always only take a small share of the world's asylum seekers. What we have done through the Bali process is to set in train a regional process here which takes into account the nearly 100,000 asylum seekers in the Thai camps, which takes into account those waiting in Malaysian camps and which tries to recognise that we have got to shut down this insidious trade of people smuggling. The Bali process remains the only grouping in our region which comprehensively addresses the challenges of people smuggling and human trafficking.

Labor's border protection policies deliver. They deliver a fairer and orderly migration system for an increased refugee intake and for secure national borders and enforcement of Australian laws. Labor's policies aim to break the people-smuggling business model and discourage dangerous boat journeys before they start.

In the wake of the High Court decision, the Gillard government did what any good government would do. We acted quickly, we acted decisively and we took the advice of experts. We came up with amendments to the Migration Act which are workable but which importantly re-establish the principle, the tradition in Australia, that the government has the right to control its border protection policy, that the government has the right to control the numbers of those that come to our nation as refugees. It is consistent with a policy approach set down as a tradition by governments of the past but also consistent with international practices of many governments which are signatories to the United Nations convention.

To do this we offered amendments to the Migration Act that were workable—the clearest possible deterrent to people smugglers. This did involve an agreement with Malaysia as the principal architecture for ensuring this. We believed that this would send a clear message not to get on a boat, because you would not end up in Australia. It is a genuine regional solution made under the auspices of the Regional Cooperation Framework. Importantly, it was shaped with the cooperation, guidance and involvement of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. It did have the potential to improve conditions for refugees throughout the region and it would have seen an increase in Australia's humanitarian intake. Most importantly, it would have re-established that principle that the Australian government has the right to control our borders and the intake of immigrants to our nation.

In the wake of this announcement, what did the Leader of the Opposition do? He made it very clear that he simply does not care about the lives of innocent asylum seekers. He is more interested in petty political point scoring. Meanwhile, the lives of women and children are being risked on the open seas. By opposing the government's efforts to amend the Migration Act, the Leader of the Opposition effectively gave a green light to the insidious trade of people smuggling. The people smugglers responsible for these boats have obviously received the Leader of the Opposition's message. As long as the opposition blocks these amendments to the Migration Act, it will leave open the possibility that the boats will keep coming, which would leave open the very real prospect of another— (Quorum formed)

As long as the opposition continues to block the very sensible amendments proposed by the government to the Migration Act, it will leave open the possibility of the boats continuing to come. That, of course, leaves open the very real possibility of another Christmas Island incident. We simply cannot allow that to occur. We all saw the terrible footage of those involved in that tragic accident. When I saw the footage of that crowded boat being battered against the rocks in the ocean, and women and children being flung overboard and hanging on for their lives, I, like many, felt an overwhelming urge to dive into the water and help and protect those people. But of course we could not.

I have spent 26 years as a surf lifesaver, and that is the sort of thing you have nightmares about: watching a tragedy unfold before your eyes but being able to do absolutely nothing about it. We on this side believe that there is something we can do about it. There is something we as a nation could have done to ensure that vulnerable people do not end up in this situation, and that would have been to ensure the passage of the very sensible amendments to the Migration Act.

But what have we seen from the Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott? He has been blocking that effort. He might as well have been standing on the docks himself in those red budgie smugglers, ushering in the boats, saying, 'Come on in.' Usually, the red budgie smugglers are a sign of security. They are a sign of a person who is there to help—a lifesaver, a person with good intentions. But in the case of the Leader of the Opposition, when it comes to this very important public policy area, that could not be further from the truth. The opposition insists on making a mockery of this issue. Their refusal to face the facts and to accept the advice of experts is simply arrogant.

Let us be fair to those opposite: they are just blindly following their leader, just as they have done on the issue of the emissions trading scheme. They used to believe in emissions trading, but now most of them no longer do. Why? Because the Leader of the Opposition has changed his view. Now they are blindly following their leader on the migration issue as well. And they are too egotistical to admit that they are wrong on this and that they are not forward thinking. They will not re-establish the principle that the executive level of the government has the right to determine the immigration policies for our borders.

The government offered the advice of experts on this issue. We offered a briefing to the Leader of the Opposition from the head of the immigration department, Andrew Metcalfe, a person whom the former immigration minister, Amanda Vanstone, has described as a 'first-class public servant'—a first-class public servant, dispensing wise advice to a government. He offered the advice to the Leader of the Opposition, and that advice was quite simply that Nauru will not work. But what does the Leader of the Opposition do? He ignores the advice of experts. The Leader of the Opposition has been told on several occasions that Nauru is not a workable alternative policy. Nauru will not work, because it is too costly, because it is an ineffective model and because it is not an effective deterrent to people smuggling. It will not stop asylum seekers risking their lives or the vulnerable getting on those boats and paying people smugglers, and it will not stop that trade to this country.

Here they all are, struggling to make this argument. Nauru does not break the people-smuggling trade. We know that from the facts. You simply have to look at the statistics. About 68 per cent of those resettled from Nauru were resettled in Australia. A massive 95 per cent of those resettled from Nauru ended up in either Australia or New Zealand. In terms of the Pacific solution, 96 per cent of those resettled from either Nauru or Manus Island ended up in Australia or New Zealand. We also know that 61 per cent of those resettled from either Nauru or Manus Island settled in Australia alone. The opposition refuse to accept the current estimate on the cost of Nauru as a processing centre, which is about $1 billion in operational costs alone. The Leader of the Opposition refuses to accept that Nauru is ineffective and expensive. The opposition know it and they just will not admit it.

Then we had the issue of 'boat phone'. What a wonderful public policy response that was to this very difficult issue! Tony Abbott, the Leader of the Opposition, would simply get on the phone and turn the boats around. He failed to understand that the nature of the problem had fundamentally changed and that unfortunately we are not dealing with civil human beings here. What did those who involve themselves in people smuggling do in response to that? They simply disabled the boats. They punched holes in them and allowed people to potentially drown, and they potentially put at risk our armed services and those involved in coastal protection.

The UNHCR made it abundantly clear that the Nauru solution just involved dumping Australia's problem on small Pacific islands. It is quite clear through this motion that Nauru will not work, that those opposite do not care about border protection, that those opposite fail to understand— (Time expired)

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

I rise too today to contribute on general business notice of motion No. 485, in relation to border security. The bad news for Australians is this: despite the comments of the previous speaker, Senator Thistlethwaite, in which he continually referred to the Gillard government's border security 'policy', unless the Prime Minister is currently doing a press conference the Australian Labor Party do not have a border security policy. Had you worked that one out yet? Do you remember that this morning you had an urgent cabinet meeting because you are in such disarray when it comes to protecting Australia's borders? Do you recall that you have all just been at a 4.15 pm caucus meeting to discuss what you are actually going to do by way of a policy? The Australian Labor Party, the current government, are in a situation that no other government in the history of Australia has ever been in: they do not have a policy in relation to the protection of Australian borders. Not only was their latest policy solution, the Malaysia solution, thrown out by the other place when a vote was taken on it, and not only has the High Court had a look at their latest policy solution, the Malaysia solution, and thrown it out; they actually cannot bring the legislation into the parliament. Do you know why they cannot bring the legislation into the parliament? Because they do not have the support for it.

A number of members of the left wing of the Labor Party last night were probably celebrating and drinking their chardonnay, which they like so dearly—if they were not bathing in it; whether they were drinking in it or bathing in it I am not quite sure—when the Prime Minister had to go to them and say, 'I can't bring the legislation on tomorrow, because the government will actually fail; we do not have the numbers.' The reason that they do not have the numbers is that, without a doubt, the so-called Malaysia solution is one of the most disgraceful policies that has ever been brought before this place. For the left of the Labor Party to have even been entertaining the idea that they would sit on that side of the parliament and vote for the Malaysia solution just shows that they are prepared to compromise every principle that they have ever held dear.

Since the inception of the Commonwealth in 1901, the first and foremost responsibility of a Commonwealth government has been the protection of Australia's borders, to ensure the security of its nation and its people. This is a fundamental responsibility of the nation's Commonwealth government, and it is a fundamental responsibility which every government other than the former Rudd government and the current Gillard government has taken seriously. A government, when it is elected, has some very clear choices to make. One of those choices is whether or not it will discharge its fundamental responsibility of protecting Australia's borders and ensuring the security of the nation of Australia. If a government is serious about discharging its fundamental responsibilities, it will take policy steps to ensure that this important portfolio area is not compromised. If you look at the track record of the former Rudd Labor government and the current Gillard Labor government, you will see that both governments have failed dismally when it comes to their first responsibility to the people of Australia. We now have a situation whereby the Australian Labor Party are confronting an institutional failure in their border protection policies. Why? Because when they were elected to office in 2007 they deliberately chose to commence a wind back of the proven border protection policies of the former Howard governments.

When the Labor Party were elected to office they inherited a solution. Let's not start talking about the $22 billion in the bank that they inherited. Let's not start talking about the billions of dollars in future funds that they inherited. Let us talk about the fact that in relation to border protection they inherited a solution. Under the former Howard government, we stopped the boats coming to Australia. As the former Speaker said his own government wanted to do, we broke the people-smugglers model. We instituted strong and effective policies. We stopped the boats.

When those on the other side were elected to office in November 2007 they inherited a solution. What did they decide to do with that solution? A little like the $22 billion surplus, a little like the future funds that we actually shed blood over to create whilst paying off Labor debt, which was in excess of $96 billion, they decided: 'We were given a solution, but we are smarter. All the coalition did was stop the boats. All the coalition did was break the people-smugglers model. We are so smart and we will do it one better.' I do not know what that one better was meant to be. What did the other side do?

In 2008, the Labor Party took steps to wind back our strong border protection policies. I would say that that is possibly one of the most stupid acts ever undertaken by a government in Australia. Why do I say that? The statistics prove that that is exactly what that act by the Labor Party was. The Labor government abolished the Howard government's strong, proven and effective border protection policies—and that was only in August 2008, not that long ago in the scheme of things—and over 12,000 people have jumped on boats and attempted the treacherous journey to Australia. Two hundred and forty-one boats have arrived in Australian waters. That is a successful policy if ever I heard of one, especially when their stated objective is to stop the boats! Twelve thousand people on 241 boats, and what is worse is that the Labor government have only been able to remove three per cent of those 12,000 people because they have failed, yet again, to negotiate return agreements with other countries.

In Senator Thistlethwaite's contribution to this debate, he raised a number of issues in relation to Nauru. He said that Nauru was not a valid option for three reasons. He said it was not effective. That is just plain wrong because, again, in 2007 zero people came to Australia and, unless my recollection is incorrect, we had offshore processing on, lo and behold, Nauru. The argument put forward by Senator Thistlethwaite that Nauru was not effective is just plain wrong. He also said that Nauru was more expensive than the Labor government's policy. He quoted a figure of $1 billion. Senator Thistlethwaite, $1 billion to reopen Nauru and keep it running is far less expensive than the $1 billion of taxpayers' money that the Labor Party are wasting every year in cost blow-outs in the area of immigration policy. The current Labor government have had more than $3 billion of taxpayer's money in that area and they have thrown it up against a wall, because they could not leave the border protection laws in Australia alone.

The third point that Senator Thistlethwaite made was that we could not do it because the High Court said that Nauru was wrong. Yet again that is just plain wrong. That is not what the High Court said. The High Court made it quite clear, and the coalition received legal advice from the former Solicitor-General that Nauru was not impacted by the High Court's decisions for some very salient reasons. One of those reasons was that the asylum seekers on Nauru were overseen by Australians. We were able to ensure that the human rights of those people sent to Nauru were actually upheld because Australians were working on Nauru. That is very, very different to the current arrangement, which is no longer an arrangement as of this morning because there is no Malaysia solution. But the government of Australia did manage to negotiate an agreement with Malaysia—a rather strange agreement because we send them up to 800 and we get 4,000 back. It is an agreement with a country that is not a signatory to the UNHCR treaty and clause 16 of the transfer arrangement negotiated between the parties specifically states that the agreement is not legally binding. Clause 16 states that this agreement represents merely the political aspirations of the party. How absolutely fantastic! The last time I checked, if something was not 'legally binding' it meant that neither party was able to enforce its obligations under the agreement. But the Labor Party, the champion of those in need, does not seem to care about that. It does not seem to care at all.

What is worse, though, in relation to the Malaysia solution, which we really should not be calling a solution, based on what is currently occurring down in the caucus room—Senator Mason, do you have an update for me? Does the Labor Party have a border protection policy? Has there been an announcement?

Senator Mason interjecting—

Okay, there has not been an announcement so we are still in the situation where there is no border protection policy in Australia. But what is worse is that over 1,200 people have arrived in Australia since the Malaysia solution was announced. Remember, the deal was good for only 800 people. What did the Labor Party do? They slightly reworded what they were going to do and said, 'No, no, it was not since the agreement was announced; it was since the parties signed the agreement'. So, 1,200 people have arrived since the solution that is neither a solution nor a policy was announced. The solution was only good for up to 800 people since it was signed, and guess what? Guess how many people have now arrived in Australia since the two parties signed the agreement? That would be just shy of 800—730. One more boat, which may have left Indonesia and be arriving shortly, and guess what? The Malaysia solution is all over before it has even begun.

The government can stand up and say, if and when it manages to get this legislation through, 'By the way, 800 people who arrive here all know—' But guess what? They have already arrived. Do you know who I feel good for? That is lucky No. 801. Do you know who I feel really bad for? No. 800. Can you only imagine? 'No. 800, you are off to Malaysia, but you, No. 801, have won the Labor Party border protection jackpot. You get to stay in Australia.' That is absolutely farcical and does not in any way represent responsible border protection policy in Australia.

It is not just those on this side of the chamber who have consistently criticised the stance that the Labor Party has taken on the Malaysia solution. Only yesterday in the chamber I had to remind those on the other side who were not from Victoria that the Victorian branch of the ALP had voted unanimously—yes, unanimously—to urge the Labor caucus to reject the so-called Malaysia solution. The last time I checked, none of us were in the Victorian branch of the ALP so that must mean the Victorian branch of the ALP does not support the current federal government's policies. But it went further than that. What did Michele O'Neil, the National Secretary of the Textile, Clothing and Footwear Union of Australia, have to say about the government's Malaysia solution? A big supporter of the Labor Party is dear Ms O'Neil, and she had this to say:

This is a shameful moment for us as a party.

Again, that was not anybody on this side of the chamber saying that—that was a staunch Labor Party supporter.

Let us not forget the emotional pleas made both publicly and behind closed doors in caucus by Labor elder statesman Senator John Faulkner. He is someone you might say those in the Labor Party should be minded to listen to. It did not stop there. You had Left faction convenor, Senator Doug Cameron. Maybe he was one of those who was celebrating last night that Mr Crook was not going to support the government's Malaysia solution. And it did not stop there. We all know Senator Gavin Marshall is passionately against the Labor government's Malaysia solution. They all came out against the current government's policy.

Again, they are not on this side of the chamber—they are not us. I am quoting directly from members of the ALP, the Victorian ALP and a member of a union. All of them are opposed to the position that the government has taken on Malaysia. But it does not stop there. The Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee had an inquiry into the Malaysia solution. If you go online and read the submissions to the inquiry, all of them oppose the government's Malaysia solution. Then we have the Monash University research, which shows that only 7.3 per cent of Australians think that the government is doing an okay job when it comes to border security.

Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Universities and Research) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

How many?

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

It is 7.3 per cent. What does that mean? It means that 92.7 per cent of Australians are not happy with the job that Labor is doing in relation to border protection. Let us not start quoting statistics on just how upset the public is about the fact that the carbon tax went through the House of Representatives yesterday. It would appear patently obvious to everybody, except those in the Labor Party, that their direction on border protection policy is inadequate and unacceptable.

Over 12,000 people have arrived since the Labor Party wound back the Howard government's proven policies. Over 1,200 people have arrived since the Labor Party announced the so-called Malaysia solution. Let us not forget that the Malaysia solution was on top of the failed East Timor solution, which was on top of discussions that we may or may not have been having at any particular point in time with PNG, which were on top of—the list goes on and on. Some 1,200 boat people have arrived since the deal was announced. The deal is only good for 800 people and we are already at 730—and the deal has not even started. One more boat and it is all over—before it has even begun. The coalition's approach of processing on Nauru, reintroducing temporary protection visas and turning boats back when it is safe to do so is the only way forward. The Labor Party just cannot seem to swallow its pride and do something effective. (Time expired)

Ursula Stephens (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We are in an extraordinary position today simply because of the recent High Court decision. Until that ruling was made, we were in the same place as the opposition on this issue. We were in the same place in that we were all supporting an offshore processing regime based around the outcomes of the Bali process—the ministerial conferences on people smuggling. The Fourth Bali Regional Ministerial Conference supported the Malaysia approach in the sense that the conference, co-chaired by Australia and Indonesia and held in March this year, agreed that there needed to be:

… an inclusive but non-binding regional cooperation framework would provide a more effective way for interested parties to cooperate to reduce irregular movement through the region.

The conference also agreed:

… where appropriate and possible, asylum seekers should have access to consistent assessment processes, whether through a set of harmonised arrangements or through the possible establishment of regional assessment arrangements, which might include a centre or centres, taking into account any existing sub-regional arrangements.

I was quite horrified by two things about Senator Cash's speech. The first was the fact that nothing in her 20-minute tirade actually reflected on the extraordinary situation of people who find themselves seeking asylum in Australia. Honestly, I gasped at the fact that there was not a single ounce of compassion in anything that she said. She used expressions like 'being able to remove people quickly' and 'not being able to articulate and act on return agreements'—returning people to where they came from.

One of the most gut-wrenching stories I have heard—from the previous government's regime—was about the return of heavily pregnant women to China. Once they were returned to China—forced by the previous government—they had to endure late term abortions. Let us just think about the real circumstances of people coming to Australia and let us think about what a return to Nauru and temporary protection visas reflects. That is the opposition's position here. That is really what they want to see; that is how they think they are going to turn the boats back. What that policy effectively did—and we know this from all the submissions from several inquiries—was send people mad. It destroyed them and damaged them for life. It stressed people—and not just the asylum seekers themselves. It distressed and stressed the people who had to care for them; it distressed and stressed officials. It created a permanent sense of displacement amongst people who were seeking asylum from circumstances in their own countries which were pretty horrific.

The driving of this debate to such a space, to such a level, is fundamentally bottom feeding. It is bottom feeding on the perils, the misery and the concerns of these people. What should we be doing instead? I will quote from someone from the other side of politics, the former Liberal member for Kooyong, Petro Georgiou, who last month wrote that it was:

an indictment of Australian politics—

I so agree with this—

that refugees are being treated as human footballs.

He says that there is a very obvious way we need to go. When you think about these things, this is exactly what the government has been trying to prosecute. Petro Georgiou suggests:

The first step is to recognise that boat arrivals, regardless of punitive measures, will continue.

You only have to look at what is happening all around the world. You cannot ignore what is happening in the rest of the world. You cannot put a metaphorical fence around our borders and say that no-one can come here, because people are desperate. They are in desperate straits, fleeing persecution, fleeing tyranny, fleeing circumstances that we cannot even begin to imagine. We cannot deny that people have a right to seek asylum and a right to try to escape their circumstances. Petro Georgiou goes on to say:

The second step is to explain to the Australian people why humane treatment of boat arrivals is not a threat.

That is really true. As Petro Georgiou says, we need:

… to inform Australians about the number of arrivals, who they are, how we determine they are genuine, and the persecution to which they have been subjected.

And, I would add, we need to inform Australians about how their processing is being managed. Petro Georgiou's article continues:

The third step is to reach agreements with regional nations that give them some degree of comfort … relieve the pressure on them and make for a more orderly process, and hopefully reduce the number of people coming on unseaworthy crafts.

Quite frankly, that is what this was all about. That is what the Malaysia solution seeks to do: it seeks to consider the issues of the millions of displaced people in the world, to share the load, to create an orderly process and to provide disincentives. I remember when the Prime Minister announced the agreement with Malaysia she said, 'This isn't the end of the process; this is the beginning of strengthening a regional cooperative framework.' The Papua New Guinea proposal was being acted upon as well.

We have a responsibility here to reflect on the urgent need for us to be part of a global resettlement process. We need to ensure that the Australian people understand that, no matter what side of politics you are on, we are a compassionate government. This motion today, which goes to the notion of fear mongering about our borders and pretends that we have porous borders on the immigration issue, really goes to the basest fears and fear mongering that Australian politics has so often become in recent years. It is bottom feeding, and people deserve better. People deserve to know that we do adhere to the United Nations refugee convention, that we do try to process people and that we do have a fundamental policy that is about minimising the impact of people who come here and about assessing their bona fides—and that is not easy when someone is displaced. We also know that there are people to whom the expression 'stopping the business model' is fundamentally important, because there are always people who make money out of other people's misery—they traffic in human misery.

The stories we have been hearing about what has happened as people have come on the boats are horrific. The first part of the deal is of gangs that are starting to sell passages out of Indonesia and other places and the second part of the deal is of then sending pirates after them to disable the boats and steal everything that everyone has, including any documentation. There have even been some unsubstantiated reports of children being stolen. All kinds of things are happening around the world—it is not just happening out of Indonesia. This is the misery of human slavery and human trafficking, and we cannot ignore it. We are an intelligent, educated, sophisticated and wealthy country and we cannot ignore that we have a responsibility to be part of the global solution here.

We need to do what we can. We need to think about the issue of resettlement. We need to explain to the Australian people that a refugee seeking asylum is assessed and then is offered resettlement. We need to educate Australians about the process. We need the issue to be taken seriously. We need to ensure that we can do what we want to do in supporting our economy and in supporting people who come here in an orderly way.

The High Court decision has meant the opposition taking the opportunistic view of not to support the changes to the legislation which would have reinstated the position that we all thought we were in a few months ago. That is honestly not about border protection; it is about playing base politics. It is about preventing the notion that we can be a people and a nation that has some compassion and some capacity to be sensible about these things. The idea that it is not in the national interest to pursue a regional framework is really mischievous of the opposition spokesperson. It is simply base politics to be playing with words. It is not about border protection. The national interest is served when we can play our part in a global solution to this issue and when we can put in place systems and processes that help to manage people's expectations.

The notion that we had of taking an additional 4,000 refugees who had been processed from Malaysia and bringing them to Australia was all about saying to people: 'We are giving you hope that there is a process. We are giving hope to asylum seekers who have been languishing in refugee camps close to us as part of a regional solution and our regional role of leadership and concern by saying that there is an option, and we will start to process these things quickly.' Isn't that what we should be doing? Isn't it where we should be going? We should be getting away from playing on people's emotions and playing to their fears and concerns. The idea of whipping up a campaign that says, 'We cannot possibly take these people from Malaysia because we are going to lose Australian jobs,' just goes to the issues that are being played in the community right now because of the uncertainty and the challenge that the High Court decision left us with.

I agonise about this issue of offshore processing—I can tell everybody that. I have not had the opportunity to speak publicly about it before. I would much prefer that we move more quickly to an onshore processing system, but I do acknowledge that the idea is bigger than us, the system is bigger than us and the processing challenge is bigger than us. We need to do so much more. We need to move quickly to supporting identity checks, security checks and health checks, to supporting what the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship is doing now in trying to get children out of detention centres, to supporting people in community detention and to processing people much more quickly than we have.

Senator Ian Macdonald interjecting —

The option from Senator Macdonald and those opposite is that we would go back to temporary protection visas, which, as I said, sent people mad. The notion that you should be in suspended animation with no support, no contact and no opportunity for family reunion is seriously flawed. It is inhumane in the extreme. It is isolating. It is desperate. It led people to do self-harm. It really is the most inhumane way forward.

The issue that we have on our side of politics is how we manage the concerns that we have about people and how we manage the concerns that we have as a government with protecting our borders and our national interests. Beyond the arguments that underlie this debate are all the other things that we are doing to protect our borders. The things that we are doing in terms of the environment, illegal fishing, antidumping and so on do not hit the radar in this debate because this is about base politics. This is really about the things that the government can do to destabilise people's confidence. It is really very frustrating.

The spirit of the refugee convention is alive and well and underpins the solution that we had before us. We will continue to pursue the Malaysia agreement, I am sure, because it is part, as I said, of the regional framework—

Senator Ian Macdonald interjecting—

It is part of what you would be doing too, I am sure, if the opposition really believed in the Bali process, really wanted to continue that kind of regional framework and really wanted to play the leadership role that is part of Australia being an educated and wealthy nation in the South Pacific. These are the things that we have to take on board. These are the challenges and the responsibilities that we have to shoulder as a nation.

It is not about playing base politics. It is not about closing our borders to anyone. It is not about deciding the how and who and when of allowing people to come to this country. It is about being compassionate. It is about being an international citizen. It is about recognising our responsibilities. It is about ensuring that we find a strong regional and international arrangement that actually deters secondary movement of asylum seekers. This is not an easy issue. If we take it down to a very simplistic 'stop the boats' kind of three-word slogan, we avoid the intellectual responsibility to turn our minds to the ways in which we can stop the business of people smuggling, stop the misery of human trafficking. We need stop playing this kind of base politics and stop fearmongering in the electorate for political gain.

We have a responsibility here to say to the Australian people that there are millions of displaced people around the world and we do not have the right—if we want to have international trade, if we want to have the freedom to travel all over the world, if we want to be international citizens ourselves—to say, 'We will put bunkers up and no-one will come here unless we allow them to.' We have to be quite reasonable and strategic about the way in which we deal with border protection issues. We have to be compassionate and strategic in the way in which we deal with asylum seekers. We certainly have to be compassionate and strategic in the way in which we deal with the whole refugee issue around the world. If we are playing our part in military conflicts around the world, there are consequences to that, and the consequences come with responsibilities.

For me, the issue of the Malaysian solution and the amendment to the migration bill now not proceeding, because of the obfuscation of the opposition, is a real disappointment, because it would have been a way forward in terms of our regional strategic framework. It is something that we have to live with. We will have to find a way forward. If the opposition were the government tomorrow, they would have to find a way forward on this too. It is not an issue that is on one side of politics; it is for all of us to deal with.

Let us be real about this. We need to have compassion and humanity. The issue of refugees and asylum seekers is about much more than border protection. It is about our role as international citizens and our reputation as an international strategic nation in the world. We have a big reputational risk here, and it behoves us all to find a way to resolve the problem.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As provided for in standing order 199, I move:

That the question be now put.

Question put:

That the motion (Senator Macdonald's) be agreed to.

The Senate divided. [17:48]

(The President—Senator Hogg)

Question agreed to.

John Hogg (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question now is that the motion moved by Senator Humphries at the request of Senator Fifield be agreed to. A division having been called and the bells being rung

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, before the vote is taken, could you just read out the motion so we are all clear on exactly what we are voting for? I suspect the Greens might not understand that by voting with the government—

John Hogg (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am advised we usually say it is in the Notice Paper.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thought there was a standing order—I do not have my standing orders in front of me—that provides that any senator can ask the presiding officer to read what the motion is.

John Hogg (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do not read the motion, the clerk reads the motion.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Could I asked the clerk to.

John Hogg (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, once we have locked the doors.

Senator Macdonald, I will now ask the clerk to read the motion.

The Clerk: General business notice of motion No. 485, standing in the name of Senator Fifield, to move—That the Senate notes the failure of the Gillard Labor Government to maintain the confidence of the Australian people in its ability to protect our borders.

The Senate divided [15:55]

(The President—Senator Hogg)

Question negatived.