Senate debates

Monday, 3 March 2014

Questions without Notice

Asylum Seekers

2:47 pm

Photo of Michaelia CashMichaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Seselja for his question. I commence my answer to the Senate by quoting from an article dated 2 March 2014 on News.com.au, when reporting comments by former Prime Minister Rudd when he was at an Oxford University recently. Mr Rudd said that a 'large slice' of people arriving by boat were not genuine asylum seekers. The site reports:

"Where it got to by the end of 2013 was the number of folks coming by boat was overwhelming the whole (Australian) refugee intake," he said.

As I stated, he said that recently in his speech to the Oxford Union.

A direct impact of the former, Labor government's failed border protection policies on those refugees waiting endless years in camps—when I say 'endless years' I mean five years, 10 years, 15 years or in excess of 20 years—is that more than 14,500 desperate people waiting in these camps were denied a place by those opposite, in conjunction with their little alliance partners the Greens, in our offshore humanitarian program, because those places were taken by people coming here illegally by boat.

It is a fact—again, Mr Rudd acknowledged this—that Australia runs one of the most generous humanitarian settlement programs in the world. However, the sad truth is this: in any one year less than one per cent of the world's 10.5 million refugees will be resettled. In any one year more than nine million will miss out. And under the previous government policy the great tragedy was— (Time expired)

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