Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Migration Amendment (Regional Processing Arrangements) Bill 2015.

From the outset, every sovereign nation has a decision about how they will handle their migration policy. One way is simply to have a policy of open borders; to allow anyone from any country to come at any time they want. I know there are those that advocate for that. In an ideal world, perhaps that would be a noble goal. But we do not live in an ideal world. We live in a world where there are probably 50 million people or more that would qualify as refugees. We live in a world where hundreds of millions of people would love to come and live in Australia.

If I lived in another part of the world—Asia, the Middle East, Africa, even Europe or the Americas—and if I knew about the wealth, the prosperity and the lifestyle that we enjoy here in Australia, I would do everything I possibly could to get myself and my family to the country called Australia. But we do not live in that ideal world. So it is an obligation upon us to set the limits about how many people we will allow to come to this country.

If we set those limits, we also have to work out what the process will be for selecting those people, for how they will come and for how we will attempt to integrate them into society. That is the process we have to follow, because the alternative of having ideal borders is simply not a realistic situation in the world we live in.

Since the end of World War 2 we have had almost seven million people migrate to Australia through that process. They have made enormous contributions to this country. They have made this country wealthier and more prosperous. It was only a few days ago here in parliament that we commemorated the 40th anniversary of the fall of Saigon and the movement of 50,000 refugees from Vietnam to Australia. Most of them were processed through the United Nations Human Rights Council. Those Vietnamese citizens have made wonderful contributions to this country and they will continue to do so for decades to come.

But the words of former Prime Minister Howard, 'We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come,' are fundamentally an exact description of how any government must run its migration policy. I know that the shadow minister for migration seemed to have great concerns with those words. He seemed to disagree with those words, which was most concerning. That is how we have done it.

When we decided we would not do that, we simply subcontracted our migration policies out to people smugglers. Despite the warnings—if you unpick our border protection policies, if you turn your backs on those policies, it will lead to chaos, death and undue cost—we saw the policies of the previous Labor government do just that. And that is exactly what happened. We saw 50,000 people arrive at Christmas Island by boat, making that dangerous trip. Over 1,000 people were drowned at sea. And we saw an $11 billion blowout in costs. No sovereign nation can subcontract out their migration policy to the people smugglers. That is why this legislation is ultimately necessary.

We, through this legislation, send the message loud and clear that anyone who comes illegally by boat without a visa to Australia will never be settled in Australia. I know that is hard for some on the other side to take. I know they sometimes like to think that they have greater humane values. But going against those principles cost 1,200 lives. That is why this bill is important. I am glad that the opposition is supporting this bill and coming on board with us. I commend this bill to the House.

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