Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Pursuant to standing order 74(5), I ask the Minister representing the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Minister Ludwig, for an explanation as to why an answer has not been provided to question on notice No. 673, asked on 30 May 2011.

Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Abetz for the question. Question No. 673, asked on 30 May, related to contraband and weapons in immigration detention centres since 1 January 2008. The answer to this question was due to be tabled on 30 June 2011. The question seeks detailed information on a number of complex and sensitive issues; the details are contained within narrative reporting prepared by officers of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship's detention service provider.

It has been necessary for departmental officials to go through and closely examine all situation reports dating back to 1 January 2008. As a consequence, these situation reports are produced after each relevant incident and cover details of major, minor and critical incidents. Every single one of these reports is examined fully and with appropriate care to ensure that the Senate receives an accurate and full answer. At this juncture the response is being carefully checked to ensure that all information provided is current and addresses the matters raised by Senator Abetz in his question.

Even though the department has not yet provided the answer to Senator Abetz, it remains fully committed to providing an answer to the question as soon as possible. As a consequence of Senator Abetz raising it today, I will again let Minister Bowen know that this issue has been raised, that Senator Abetz is seeking a response to the question and that we should encourage the department to provide the answer as early as possible.

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the explanation.

The question that I asked was as follows:

What measures and/or procedures are in place to prevent contraband or weapons being brought into detention centres.

This is pretty straightforward, I would have thought. The second question is:

Since 1 January 2008, have any contraband or weapons been detected in detention centres …

I would have thought this would be another pretty simple question. It continues:

… if so, can the following in relation to each detention centre be provided: (a) what items were found; (b) where those items were found; (c) on what date they were found; and (d) what action was taken against the person or persons identified as being involved.

That was asked on 30 May 2011. Patient fellow that I am, I waited until 19 July to write to the minister, Mr Bowen, indicating that the answer was now 50 days outstanding, almost twice the Senate's 30-day rule. There was no answer to that letter. So I wrote again on 1 September 2011 advising the minister that these questions had now been outstanding for 90 days, three times the Senate's 30-day rule. I therefore advised the minister's office that I would be raising this in the Senate, and I did so on 19 September 2011 using the mechanism that I am using today. The then Minister representing the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Senator Carr, told us on 19 September, virtually word perfect, that which Senator Ludwig has just read out to the Senate all these months later.

In my response at that time, I indicated that the questions, with respect, are not that complex. If there are aspects of questions that are complex then by all means tell us which parts are complex and which parts might take longer to answer than others. But I would have thought that by now the Department of Immigration and Citizenship under this incompetent government would have had measures and/or procedures in place to prevent contraband or weapons being brought into detention centres. That is a complex question for this government. This is a question that the government now needs some nine months to come to grips with. Are we to believe that there are no protocols, measures or procedures in place to prevent contraband or weapons being brought into detention centres? But that was the issue I raised in my speech on 19 September last year.

Finally, 105 days after I first wrote to Mr Bowen, Mr Bowen finally responded, apologising for the delay but saying that these were complex issues. We received that letter on 2 November, and it would appear that our letters crossed, because I wrote to Mr Bowen again on 2 November asking him to respond and noting that these questions had been on the Senate Notice Paper for 156 days. Today they have been on the Senate Notice Paper for 204 days.

So what we have, on top of the government's failed border protection policies, is failed administration by the minister. That is why this government is in the hopeless position it is in. It has hopeless policies combined with hopeless administr­ation. What is the excuse that it takes a minister 105 days to respond to a letter and say, 'We are not going to answer your question'? Here we are now, 204 days later, on an issue that is clearly of national significance. The border protection policy of this country is clearly a national interest policy. It is a policy that most people who are serious about national politics have a view on. As a result of the government's failed border protection policy, we now have all these detention centres scattered from Christmas Island, in the most north-westerly corner of Australia, right through to my home state of Tasmania, in the most south-easterly corner of Australia. They are scattered all around the countryside, bursting at the seams with excessive numbers of detainees. So, if ever you wanted a proof of the failed border protection policies of this government, just look at the numbers in the detention centres.

Given that we have had riots, given that we have had assaults such as Senator Cash was referring to and given that we have had detention centres burning down, it does make good sense to ask what measures are there to stop contraband and weapons being brought into detention centres, and we cannot be told. It is too complex a problem for Mr Bowen. Well, if that is too complex a problem for Minister Bowen, he should not be a minister and, quite frankly, he should not even be in the parliament if it is such a complex issue for him. Indeed, one would wonder how he could hold down a job. Surely there are protocols and measures in place to try to at least limit contraband and weapons coming into our detention centres. But what the Australian people have been told by this non-answer—now for 204 days—is that the government not only has no idea on border protection but has no idea on the significant issue of how to deal with detainees in the detention centre. Given the sort of environment in which the detention centres operate, I would have thought the No. 1 priority would be ensuring that weapons and contraband do not get into those detention centres. But it would seem they have no policy. They have no guidelines, they have no protocols on how to deal with it. Why is that and why is it that the government is so anxious to ensure that we are not told about the assaults, about the injuries? Because it will embarrass the government even further; that is the reason. We would see failed border protection policy, failed detention centre policy combined with maladministra­tion by this minister and by this government.

I would have thought that a genuine response, rather than the arrogant treatment that the Senate is being subjected to, would have been to say: 'There are a number of issues:'—if we are to believe what the minister tells us at face value—'these are the aspects that are complex, these are the aspects that are not and here is a preliminary answer to those matters that we can provide an answer to.' But to deliberately obfuscate and deny for 204 days shows the arrogance and the contempt with which this government treats the opposition.

It is noteworthy there is not a single Australian Green in the Senate. It is noteworthy that for the Australian Greens this sort of contempt for the parliament—and, might I say, for the Independents in the other place—does not make them concerned, albeit they signed up with Ms Gillard to a policy of transparency, accountability and we were told sunlight was good, if you remember that wonderful line. 'Sunlight is a good disinfectant; we should open everything up and allow the people to see.' Two hundred and four days of nonresponse is keeping the drapes closed; it is not allowing the sun to shine in in any way, shape or form.

Sure, the government is embarrassed by its border protection policies, as it ought to be. Sure, the government is embarrassed by its detention centre failures, as it ought to be. It now seems that the government is also embarrassed by its administrative failures through its minister, Minister Bowen, as it ought to be as well. But you do not overcome that embarrassment, you do not overcome those failures by simply stonewalling. You do not overcome these problems by simply not providing an answer. You actually have to man-up and provide an answer and treat the parliament with the courtesy it deserves; 204 days for outstanding answers is completely and utterly unacceptable. We look forward, as a matter of urgency, to getting the answers, I say to Minister Ludwig. I know he is not personally responsible, but when you have made contact with the minister's office courteously, not once or twice but now five times over a period of nine months, that is administrative failure writ large.

The sad thing is, Minister Bowen is now being talked about as a potential running mate to become the Deputy Prime Minister of Mr Rudd.

Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And Treasurer!

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And the federal Treasurer of this country. He cannot run border protection. He cannot run detention centres. He cannot sign letters. He cannot answer questions. And here we have Mr Bowen potentially becoming the Deputy Prime Minister, albeit he will be hip-and-shouldered out of that by Senator Bob Brown, because we know Senator Bob Brown is well ensconced in that role. Really Mr Bowen's failure in policy and administra­tion is unacceptable. I indicate to the government I will be pursuing this, not every two months but now on a weekly basis.

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

Clearly the government is embarrassed by its whole border protection regime and the fiascos we have seen under the Rudd government and the Gillard government. But that is no reason for this government deliberately withholding from this chamber answers to questions that have been properly asked. This chamber, as a representative of the Australian people, has the right to ask questions and to have those questions answered in a timely fashion. This government is so embarrassed by its border protection policy that it refuses to give any information which will make it even more embarrassed and which will cause the Australian people to be even more concerned about the fiasco that is border protection. I think all of that is fact. As Senator Abetz has very clearly and concisely pointed out, the questions are not all that difficult to answer. They concern information which any depart­ment of state would have practically at their fingertips. It is an abuse of the parliamentary process that this government deliberately withholds from the chamber information to which the Australian public is entitled.

I finish by referring to the Greens. You notice they scamper out of here every time they are called upon to keep the Labor Party honest, to keep—as their predecessor party, the Australian Democrats, once famously said—the bastards honest. We would expect the Greens, in keeping with the persona they put around to the Australian public as the upholders of everything that is good and moral about the parliamentary system, to do so. If you look back through their speeches in the times when the Liberal Party was in government, you would see how speeches that the parliament was entitled to information flowed off their tongues day after day. Yet here we have a process where, since 30 May last year, we have been attempting to get quite reasonable and easily obtained answers, and the Greens simply will not join with us in forcing their running mates in the Labor Party to provide the sort of information to which the Australian public is entitled. I say to those who might be listening that this again demonstrates the absolute hypocrisy of the Greens political party. They are not an independent political party; they are simply the ultra left wing of the Australian Labor Party. They always have been and those of us in this chamber know that. But I think the general public, who do not follow politics perhaps as closely as those of us in this chamber do, are now beginning to understand that in the Labor Party you have a right wing, you have a decreasing number of moderates and you have a left wing. You have people like Senator Sherry. Clearly he is the best minister that has been in this chamber from the Labor Party for many years, but he is a man who swung in the breeze by himself. He did not have a real faction to support him.

Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That sounds like Senator Feeney.

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

He did not have Senator Feeney to support him on that side. He did not have Senator Arbib to support him. He did not have Senator Carr to support him—not that Senator Carr's support would be worth much; he could not even look after himself. You do see how the Labor Party is so factionalised. But there is this other faction, this quite shadowy faction, that Senator Sinodinos mentioned today and I draw senators' attention to that very good speech in case they missed it. You almost have that ultra left wing of the Labor Party masquerading as the Greens, which is in effect a de facto communist party in Australia. The Greens are not here to keep Senator Feeney on track and are not here to keep Senator Arbib up to the mark because they are part of that same left-wing, ultimately socialist government—a government that believes Big Brother is better able to direct me on how I should conduct my life than I am, that believes Big Brother is better able to spend my money than I am and that believes Big Brother should take my money and help the disadvantaged rather than allow me to help the disadvantaged as I and most Australians do with our own money. That is the shame of this. The Greens, who should be in here demanding that the parliament have supremacy over the executive government, disappear. I think, I hope and I trust that the Australian public are rapidly understanding that the Greens are no more than a hypocritical wing of the Labor Party and therefore part of the current government.

Question agreed to.