Don Randall (Canning, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Roads and Transport) Share this | Hansard source

I will return to the bill. We are talking about character tests for people who come to Australia. At the end of the day, the character test that would have confronted Alex should have made sure that he was not the sort of person who could remain here.

Let us put this into context. We hear the Prime Minister, the ministers and all of the Labor Party say, ‘Yeah, but look, we haven’t got a problem anything like what they have in Europe.’ And they mention Italy all the time. I am a bit of an expert on the Italian situation. I have been there to have a look at it firsthand. Recently I visited the detention centre in Sicily called Caltanissetta. I not only spoke with the deputies from the city of Caltanissetta, but once I got to the detention centre I spoke to the people involved in the administration of the detention centre, and it was all very revealing. They process them there very quickly and then they either determine that they are refugees and or they return them.

What has been missed by most people in this debate is that in 2008 Italy initiated a formal agreement between the Italian and Libyan authorities to intercept and return unauthorised boats. It was concluded and ratified by the Italian parliament in February 2009. This has been called the push-back policy in Italy. You can think what you like about Mr Berlusconi, and his behaviour as Italian Prime Minister is well documented, but he was elected clearly and still has a clear majority in the Italian polls, from what I understand, and one of the reasons is that he has done something about the illegal arrivals into Italy. Italy, like many European countries, does have very porous borders. At one stage they used to give up and say, ‘Look, we will take you into our reception centres and we will feed you and organise for you to keep going north.’ They were sending them off to Germany because Germany had a very lax system. There was a good pull factor—once they arrived there they got welfare payments, they got housing and they got health care. What does that remind you of? The current situation in Australia.

According to press reports in Italy, in 2008 there were 19,000 arrivals. Because of this push-back policy, in 2009 there were only 1,900—in other words, one-tenth of the arrivals because Mr Berlusconi was able to do a deal with Libya to intercept the boats making the journey across the Mediterranean. The Mediterranean has been the pathway to Europe, which has been a desired destination for political asylum. Here is something that might interest those who continue to use the Italian situation, saying we are nothing like Italy, which has these tens of thousands of arrivals. In proportion, we are. As I have said, so far this year, since Mr Rudd said in budget estimates last year there would be only 200 people, we know there have been over 3,100 people. So in Italy there have been 1,900 and we have had 3,100. We have had 68 boats in that period. So there is something going on that is attracting these people to Australia. There is a pull factor, and I will elaborate on that shortly.

Believe it or not, there is an island off Libya which is much like our Ashmore Reef. Once they get there, they are deemed to be on Italian territory. That is like Ashmore Reef because even today it is being said that those wanting to come to Australia actually plot Ashmore Reef into their GPS and they go looking for our boats so that they can be intercepted and transferred straight to Christmas Island. As we know, the Labor Party keep saying to us, ‘Oh yes, but it is not full.’ You will recall that before the election they said that they were not going to use Christmas Island as they would not need it—it was a redundant facility; a waste of money as it only held 800 people. What have they done now? They have filled it up with tents and dongas. It can now potentially hold up to 2,000 people, and even now it is filling up. There are reports now that there are moves to bring people onto the Australian mainland before they are fully assessed. Why would you do that? The danger is that, once they reach the Australian mainland, they potentially get access to greater legal support and the industry that flows from that.

So, as I say, the situation between Australia and Italy is very similar, but the Italians have dealt with it. As a result, they have now reduced the flow to a trickle. This was made very clear to me when I was in the Italian detention centre in Sicily. It certainly is a pull factor when if you can get here you can stay here and get a visa. That is why we have seen even more robust pushes of people from these countries who are trying to get to the mainland. We saw the group of Sri Lankans that got off the boat in Shark Bay, hundreds of metres from the shore. They swam ashore and then asked how to get to Sydney. That is how determined they are to get to the mainland.

The other point that people continue to make is that the war in Afghanistan is one of the push factors. As was pointed out by the member for Cook yesterday, the Europeans have done an investigation of all those arriving in Europe and the increase in that period of time has been only one half of one per cent, and yet Australia in the same period of time has had an increase of 31 per cent. So what does that tell you?

I was the chair and am now the deputy chair of the Sri Lankan Friendship Group in this place. The reports about Sri Lankans, the Tamils in particular, having to flee Sri Lanka because of the civil war are totally overblown. When you talk to their ministers and you talk to their government and you talk to their high commissioner in Australia, you see that this is absolute rubbish. They are resettling the Tamils into the conflict zone, and this is being monitored by international agencies. There are reports now that something like 80,000 Sri Lankans have appeared after the cyclone season to come to Australia. The Sri Lankans now know that you just get to Australia and you get your visa, so they are preparing on the shores around Trincomalee and places like that to get a fishing boat to come to Australia.

This is a grave area of policy failure by the Australian Labor Party. As a result, we have seen unfortunate deaths and we have seen a situation where the males generally come on their own and when they get here they can apply for all the other entitlements such as spouse visas, et cetera. Finally, we know that this is costing Australia enormously. While pensioners are doing it tough, Centrelink benefits paid to refugees have increased 40 per cent in the last two years—one wonders why this has happened over the past two years—to an estimated $628 million. In the last financial year, 52,469 refugee visa holders received Centrelink benefits, including the age pension, the disability support pension, Austudy, Newstart and youth allowance, and more than $20 million was paid to these people in baby bonuses. No wonder Australia is a desired destination. These are entitlements that you would never get anywhere else. (Time expired)

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