Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. So let us look at the issue more broadly as to what is causing these massive increases in expenditure as a result of the government’s failed policies. Firstly, is there a problem? Yesterday in the House, the Prime Minister, in addressing his part of a debate held on another matter, posed three questions: is there a problem; are you going to do something about that problem: are you committed and is your heart in the solution?

Let us apply those same three tests to the government. Is there a problem with border protection and the rate of arrivals to this country under this government? Since the government changed the rules in August 2008, 77 boats have arrived and 3,480 people have arrived on those boats illegally. I do not shirk from that statement. If you go to the UN convention you will find in there the term ‘illegal arrival’. I do not think we should mix messages with the Australian people and try to engage ourselves in cloaked language. These boats have arrived illegally.

Nine boats have arrived this year, carrying 509 people—that is, in the last month, nine boats have arrived—with the most recent cruising into Christmas Island the other evening, basically coming into the harbour at Flying Fish Cove, with 185 people. Since 1 December last year, 21 boats have arrived. I highlight 1 December last year because this is the monsoon season. This is the cyclone season. Last year four boats came over that very difficult and dangerous time. We have had 21 boats over the summer, full of people who are literally putting their lives at risk at sea. Not even the forces of nature, not even the forces of weather—cyclones and monsoons—can counteract the magnetic effect of the policies of the government when it comes to border protection. Basically, people are prepared to take the risk, and it is an extreme risk in these summer months.

If those opposite doubt it they should talk to the people living in the Afghan community in Brisbane who are still waiting for calls from 105 people who they fear are lost at sea. It is feared 105 people have perished at sea because they got on a boat and sought to come to this country. You have to ask yourself the question: why were they trying to get to Australia? They were in Indonesia. They were in a place where their lives were not under immediate threat. They had the opportunity to register with the UNHCR there and to take themselves through the process, in which Australia is one of the most generous resettlement countries in the world. But, no, they decided, I am sure at the encouragement of people smugglers, to get on a boat. Today their families are wondering where they are, and they have been waiting since October.

I do not hear moralistic shrills coming from the government about people’s lives being put at risk. I am concerned about the welfare of the people on that boat which did not get to Christmas Island. We do not know how many do not get to Christmas Island because, when asked, the government say, ‘We’re not aware of anything happening in our territorial waters.’ You have to take responsibility when you send out an invitation. The government need to ask themselves about what risk they are placing people in by encouraging them to come to Australia in this fashion.

So, moving on, the government have created a highway in the sea and it is coming to Christmas Island for one purpose, and that is to get a visa. At the moment, more than nine out of 10 people will get that permanent visa which allows them to immediately gain access to a range of other services and, in particular, to encourage their family members to join them. As I said before, there are about 1,800 beds available on Christmas Island; that population is currently unsustainable.

So we do have a problem. There is no doubt that we have a problem of significant proportions and it requires a response. But what has been the response from this government? I quote the Prime Minister’s words yesterday when he said:

We believe that we have got the balance of the policy right …

Right for whom? It is right for people smugglers who are charging people $20,000 to risk their lives at sea! It is pretty right for the people smugglers; it is very right for the people smugglers. The government are basically saying, ‘We think that everything’s fine,’ and they wave on the next boat. When you read the press releases issued by the Minister for Home Affairs you can see that they are computer generated, which is no surprise from this government. On this same issue they are computer generated: ‘Well, it’s not our fault. It’s everything happening everywhere else.’ This is just another problem which they apparently believe they have no control over or no responsibility for.

But the people of Australia feel very differently about this, because they know that they had a government which was able to do something about this issue and which was able to reduce the arrival of boats to zero on two separate occasions in two financial years. In the course of the last six years of our government we had 18 boat arrivals. The government have had 18 boat arrivals in the last eight weeks, and their response is simply to say, ‘Well, this is all out of our control.’ They sent more beds to Christmas Island; they incurred the additional expenses as set out in these bills and basically asked the Australian people to get used to it. That is their response; they will wave it through. But they have another response, because Christmas Island is full and we are one boat away from having to do what the government have already said they would do. They said they would bring directly to the mainland those people whose claims had not yet been determined. So the offshore processing system, which has been the backbone of our border security system, will be effectively unwound—and already has been with the transfer of 30 young people prior to Christmas. This is the government’s plan: to bring them directly to Australia. I do not know what message the government thinks it is giving to people smugglers about that issue, but I certainly know what message the people smugglers will be taking: ‘We’ll get them to their waters and the Australian government, under Kevin Rudd, will take them all the way to the mainland, and they won’t even have to wait for their assessment as to whether they are a refugee to be completed.’ That is the message that they are sending.

Yesterday the minister got quite excited in the Senate when he made references to the Pacific solution of the former government. I will be very clear: what the coalition has said very clearly about what we will do at the moment—and there will be more to come before the election—is that we will do two things. We will reinstate, effectively, the system of a safe haven visa. So, if you come via this channel, you will not get immediate and permanent access to the visa arrangements that are available under a permanent visa offered by this government—which has made a rolled gold product for people smugglers under this government. The other thing we have said we would do is that we would not compromise offshore processing. We will not. I have been very clear about that; I have been saying it for six to eight weeks. I have also said very clearly, as I said on the Ray Hadley program yesterday, that Nauru and Manus are closed, so if the government want to run around talking about Nauru and Manus that is fine but what they should be doing is looking for alternative offshore processing arrangements. Nauru and Manus are unacceptable. They have been closed, and I suspect that the opportunity to reopen them does not exist. That is not the point. The point is: is the government prepared to take tough decisions to find solutions that will put a border security system in place in this country, through our visa arrangements, that will deter the activities of people smugglers and compromise the product that they are seeking to offer people who have the money to pay to get on a boat and come here while many others do not? That is what the government has to decide: whether they have the stomach to undertake the decisions that will lead to turning this terrible situation around.

The third thing that the Prime Minister said is: ‘Are you committed?’ Let me tell you why the coalition is very heated on this issue. Those opposite like to engage in this form of moral piety, self assessing their own virtue as a response to the coalition’s position rather than actually putting forward arguments and policies that will work. The coalition is concerned about this issue for two reasons, in particular, but there are many more that I will be happy to discuss over the course of this year. But let us think about this. Five people were killed on a boat that exploded last year trying to get to Australia by this channel. I have already mentioned the 105 Afghans about whom we will never know what happened. For me, saving lives is a very good reason to take decisions to stop the boats. A further reason is that there are 140,000 Burmese refugees sitting in Thailand today. They have not been waiting 100 days on Christmas Island. They have not been waiting five years in Indonesia. These are people who were born in those camps and are now raising their own children in these camps. They have been waiting for generations for this opportunity, and what this government is saying is: ‘We will take people who pay $20,000 to a people smuggler, people who get on the highway on the sea to the visa factory on Christmas Island, and within 100 days they can come straight on in.’ But if you are waiting in Indonesia or Thailand, and you have been waiting for generations, frankly you will just have to wait a little more under the policies of the Rudd government. So do not come to us with all your moral invective and your moral grandstanding when your own policies put people’s lives at risk by drawing them into decisions which put them on very risky voyages and deny people who have been waiting generations in camps for their opportunity for a fair go in Australia.

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