Damian Hale (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is with a great deal of pleasure that I rise today to voice my strong support for the Anti-People Smuggling and Other Measures Bill 2010. It is important that members on this side talk to the bill that is before the House and not go off on a rant, such as those opposite have indulged in, about the so-called weakening of the laws. This bill is another example of the government’s commitment to strengthening Australia’s national security and border protection regime. The key elements of the bill will improve whole-of-government efforts to combat people-smuggling, including ensuring appropriate investigative tools are available to law enforcement and national security agencies and providing greater flexibility for Australia’s national security agencies to support anti-people-smuggling activities. This bill includes additional measures to strengthen the Commonwealth’s anti-people-smuggling legislative framework by putting in place laws that further criminalise people-smuggling activities to enable prosecution of a broad range of conduct, including the consequences of that activity.

The bill sees practical reforms in six areas. It establishes a new offence of ‘providing support for people smuggling’ in the Migration Act 1958 and the Criminal Code. The bill harmonises people-smuggling offences between the Migration Act and the Criminal Code to strengthen our criminal framework and provide greater consistency, including inserting into the Migration Act the aggravated offence of ‘people smuggling involving exploitation or danger of death or serious harm’. It extends the higher mandatory minimum penalties in the Migration Act for the new aggravated offence of ‘involvement in exploitation or danger of death or serious harm’ to offenders convicted of multiple offences. It makes associated changes to the Surveillance Devices Act 2004 and Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 to enable law enforcement and security agencies consistent access under both acts to appropriate investigative tools. The bill also amend the Australia Security Intelligence Organisation Act 1979 to enable ASIO to perform a greater role in relation to people smuggling and other serious threats to Australia’s territorial and border integrity. It also aligns the definition of ‘foreign intelligence’ in the T(IA) Act more closely with the Intelligence Services Act 2001.

People seeking asylum are not something new. In the 1970s, we experienced the arrival of the first wave of boats carrying people seeking asylum from the aftermath of the Vietnam War. Over half the population of Vietnam was displaced in these years. While most people fled to neighbouring Asian countries, some embarked on a voyage by boat to Australia. The first boat arrived in Darwin in April 1976 carrying five Indochinese men. Over the next five years, there were 2,059 Vietnamese boat arrivals, with the last arriving in August 1981.

My electorate of Solomon, like so many communities throughout Australia, is a vibrant, multicultural melting pot of nationalities. Over 80 different nationalities make up our fantastic community. The arrival of 27 Indochinese asylum seekers in November 1989 heralded the beginning of a second wave. Boats arrived over the following nine years, mostly from Cambodia, Vietnam and southern China. In 1999, the third wave of asylum seekers, predominantly from the Middle East, began to arrive, often in larger numbers than previous arrivals and usually with the assistance of people smugglers.

This is a global problem. There are over 42 million displaced people around the world. In recent years, global factors have meant a continued increase in the global numbers of refugees and asylum seekers. Figures published by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR, reveal that at the end of 2008 there were some 42 million forcibly displaced people around the world. That is twice the population of Australia. This includes 15.2 million mandated refugees, 827,000 asylum seekers and 26 million internally displaced persons.

On Afghanistan, in a recent report to the Security Council, the UN Secretary-General noted:

… 2008 ended as the most violent year in Afghanistan since 2001.

In 2008 there was an 85 per cent increase in the number of Afghan asylum seekers claiming protection in industrialised countries worldwide. From Sri Lanka, for the same period of time, the number of internally displaced people assisted by the UNHCR in Sri Lanka increased from 324,699 to 504,800—an increase of 55 per cent. Sri Lanka has just emerged from a decades-long civil war which cost tens of thousands of lives, uprooted hundreds of thousands of Sri Lankans and left an economic divide between the north and the south and between east and west. There are currently 250,000 Tamils from the north of Sri Lanka in camps for internally displaced people.

This government takes the protection of our borders seriously. We have more assets patrolling our borders than the previous government had. We have retained mandatory excision of Ashmore Reef and Christmas Island. If a boat is intercepted, those on board are taken to Christmas Island where their health and identity are checked and they are checked for security risk. If someone claiming to be an asylum seeker is found not to be a refugee, they are sent home.

People smuggling is not just an issue for Australia but a global and a regional issue. I certainly welcome the contribution made in this place by the President of Indonesia last week. He spoke of the way our two countries are working together to combat this most evil of trades—that is, the smuggling of the most vulnerable and marginalised people on the planet. The commitment of our neighbours, through the bilateral cooperation of the Bali Process on People Smuggling, Trafficking in Persons and Related Transnational Crime, is critical to addressing this most serious issue. The Australian government is highly supportive of the Bali Process, which was established by Australia and Indonesia to develop practical measures to help combat people-smuggling crimes in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond.

The Australian government has an orderly and planned migration program and places a high priority on protecting Australia’s borders from irregular maritime arrivals by maintaining an effective and visible tactical response program of aerial, land- and sea-based patrols. Border Protection Command uses a combination of Customs and Border Protection and Defence assets to deliver a coordinated national response to security threats in Australia’s maritime domain. The global spike in people-smuggling activity around the world, including in Australian waters, means we need more resources and improved laws to deal with this global problem. That is why the government is funding a $654 million whole-of-government strategy to combat people smuggling and address the problem of unauthorised boat arrivals.

The strategy includes the largest surveillance and detection operation against people smuggling in Australia’s history. The massive funding increase in the budget will provide: $324 million worth of funding to increase maritime patrols and surveillance, which will see an additional maritime surveillance craft in Australia’s northern waters and increased maritime surveillance time; an almost $63 million funding increase for aerial surveillance, which means two additional surveillance aircraft; around $93 million to strengthen our engagement with our regional neighbours and international organisations; and $13.6 million to strengthen our legal and prosecution capacity and enhance regional cooperation on people-smuggling laws. The Rudd government has also established a dedicated Border Protection Committee of cabinet, which will be supported by the newly established Border Protection Taskforce to drive the government’s response to the people-smuggling threat.

Our government is determined to make the investments that are needed to protect our borders and strengthen Australia’s national security. In particular, there is clear evidence of a global spike in people-smuggling activity, which is causing an increase in people-smuggling activities in Australian waters. The government is determined to ensure we respond effectively and decisively to the global spike in people smuggling and other emerging threats to Australia’s national security. This bill demonstrates the government’s commitment to addressing the serious nature of people-smuggling activities and to targeting those criminal groups who seek to organise, participate in and benefit from people-smuggling activities.

People smuggling is a serious and organised crime involving organised criminal syndicates which depend on enablers and facilitators. Targeting the organisers and financiers of people-smuggling operations is an important element of a strong anti-people-smuggling framework. People-smuggling activities involve significant risks and dangers, including the potential for loss of life and injury. Financial gain is a key driver for smugglers, who often have little regard for the safety and wellbeing of those on board the vessel.

This bill puts laws in place to provide a greater deterrent to people-smuggling activities and to address the serious consequences of such activities. I commend the efforts of the Attorney-General on these amendments and the strengthening of these laws. As the Prime Minister of Australia said in his first National Security Statement address to the parliament in December 2008:

The Government is committed to deploying all necessary resources to prosecute those criminals who seek to undermine Australia’s border security. We will work with our partners in the region to shut down the illegal operations of people smugglers and see them put in jail where they belong.

I commend the bill to the House.

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