Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Hansard source

While I welcome this MPI because it gives another opportunity to compare and contrast the proposals from the opposition and the government, I must say it is disappointing to hear more of the same from the honourable gentleman opposite. He had an opportunity, after his trip to Nauru on the weekend, to lay out some more developed thinking about the opposition's approach, to answer some of the questions and criticisms that this side has put to him, but we have heard nothing. Never before have so few travelled so far to say so little as the Leader of the Opposition and the member for Cook on the weekend, going to Nauru. Never before have they gone so far to achieve so few sound bites. This MPI from the honourable member opposite goes through three criteria: proven, more cost-effective, more humane. He wants to be compared to this government. 'Proven, more cost-effective, more humane'—I am more than happy to go through each one.

We heard a bit from the shadow minister just then about the first element. He claimed that their proposals were more proven than this government's proposals. He can put it however he likes, but I would like him to outline where people sent to Nauru under his proposal would be resettled if they were regarded as genuine refugees. The member for Cook can get up at the dispatch box today and say they will be resettled in Australia and New Zealand like 95 per cent of those regarded as genuine refugees were resettled before. Where are they going to be resettled? Maybe they are going to be resettled in Europe, maybe in Asia, but you could outline it. Are you going to get the UNHCR to assist you in resettling people from Nauru?

The honourable member has had the opportunity, over 15 minutes, to explain why this Nauru solution is different to the last Nauru solution. Where would they be resettled? The honourable member for Cook knows that they would be resettled in Australia. He knows—and he loves me using this statement—that that does not break the people smugglers' business model. If people smugglers are able to go to Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq and say: 'Look, you come to Australia and you will be transferred to Nauru. You'll have to wait there awhile You might have to wait 12 months, you might have to wait two years or, as happened before under the previous government, you might have to wait five years, but you are going to get resettled in Australia.

'I still have a product to sell you,' the people smugglers would be able to say, as opposed to the arrangements with Malaysia, where it is very clear in the agreements outlined between the two prime ministers that people transferred from Australia to Malaysia will not be resettled back into Australia. That breaks the people smugglers model in a way the opposition could never have the wit to do. That breaks the people smugglers' business model in a way the Liberal Party never achieved while they were in office.

Then we have 'more cost-effective'. I know the opposition have the odd difficulty when it comes to budget costings. I know they have the odd black hole. But, based on his performance thus far, the member for Cook is no threat to the member for Goldstein or the member for North Sydney in terms of an economic portfolio because his performance on costings is about as good as theirs were. We heard the shadow minister saying: 'It only costs $10 million. That's all Nauru would cost.' He did the nice tour of the Nauru centre, which happens to be a school now, so you would have to transfer people out of the school and rebuild it elsewhere. We had page 34 of the MYEFO outline of capital costs and measures announced since the previous budget for irregular maritime arrivals of $45 million. We had operational costs of $251 million just for the Department of Immigration and Citizenship, just the one department—not taking into account the transfer costs, borne by the Navy, of moving people to Nauru and moving people back again when they were resettled; not taking into account the support and administrative costs, borne by AusAID, that were necessary to get Nauru to agree to this arrangement. The department of immigration's costs alone—one government department—were $251 million.

Then we have the final leg of the opposition's claim that somehow the Nauru solution was more humane. I do want to spend a little bit of time on this particular leg of the opposition's attack, because the Pacific solution did not break the people smugglers' business model; it broke the will and spirit of asylum seekers. That is what the Pacific solution did.

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