Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Like the member for Wakefield, I too was a member of the Joint Select Committee on the Christmas Island Tragedy of 15 December 2010. I totally concur with him that, unlike any other inquiry I have done, I found this very moving and confronting on many levels. Up front I thank Senator Gavin Marshall, the chair, and the deputy chair, Michael Keenan, the member for Stirling, who, like Senator Marshall, did a sterling job in engaging with the stakeholders and engaging with the information and ensuring the inquiry was done as promptly and as thoroughly as possible.

It was, as I said, a very confronting inquiry. My wife works in child protection and she is a shift worker who works in a 24-hour service, so she often comes home at 10 o'clock or midnight. She often wants to unpack the details of some horrific tale—never breaching confidentiality but just sometimes talking about the circumstances. Obviously, lying in bed at 11 o'clock at night or midnight, the last thing I want to do is talk about these horrible things that go on out in the world in Queensland. But having been in this inquiry I now have a much better insight into why maybe I should just listen and talk about these things. Sometimes you just need to unpack the horrors and work through them so that you can put your head on your pillow and think that it is a wonderful world rather than a world of horror. So, yes, it was a very confronting inquiry; that is for sure.

Sometimes inquiry reports have interesting covers and interesting titles. The cover of this report is very nondescript and it has a very nondescript title, but so much in this inquiry report belies the tragedy that unfolded. Even the map on page 79 of the report is just a plain map with arrows and a very black and white strip showing what actually occurred, but it belies the horror that did occur. The reality is that on 15 December 2010 the conditions on Christmas Island were absolutely atrocious—40-knot winds, thunderstorms and wave heights of three to four metres, with some of the waves coming through at around four to five or six metres, according to the people at Rocky Point. There was very low visibility and certainly locals were saying it was the worst weather conditions some of them had ever experienced on the island when SIEV221 was sighted off Rocky Point at 5.40 am on 15 December. There was an incredible set of circumstances.

I have commended all of the committee, and I also want to particularly thank, as the chair has done, those from the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service, the Australian Federal Police, the Australian Defence Force and the Christmas Island community—they all did incredible work on that day on the rocks. As the member for Wakefield indicated, people were very much at risk, and the lives of Christmas Island residents were saved. Some of them were so horrified by what they saw that they were willing to put their lives at risk—to the extent that, but for their being restrained, they would have lost their lives because the conditions were so horrible. People were being slammed into rocks—and they were very sharp rocks. It was a stark contrast to what it is like if you go down there on a calm day. As Mr Raymond Murray, one of the Rocky Point residents and one of the first people on the scene, said:

… there was this overwhelming feeling of helplessness. Standing right out on the edge of the rocks, there were times when the boat was closer than you are to me now.

People said it was two or three metres away from where they were standing on the edge—as close as I am to the member for Banks. Mr Murray said:

I will never forget seeing a woman holding up a baby, obviously wanting me to take it, and not being able to do anything. It was just a feeling of absolute hopelessness. It was like it was happening in slow motion. A wave would pick the boat up and almost hit the rocks and then go back again, and then finally it … exploded.

As has been mentioned by earlier speakers, people were trying to get life jackets to the people on the boat—life jackets from dive operators and from boats nearby. They were hurling them as far as they could into the water. Maybe if they had had grenade life jackets they would have been able to rescue more people. I point out the following: of the 42 people who survived, 41 had life jackets. So it is not very complicated: if you have life jackets in rough seas, there is more chance of surviving. I will mention the one survivor who did not have a life jacket in a minute. The reality is obviously that Australia will never have enough life jackets for all the people who want to come to Australia. There are 42 million displaced people in the world; we do not have enough life jackets for all of them. Obviously that is metaphorically speaking, but in this circumstance it was practically speaking, because the 30 people whose bodies were recovered and the 20 people who are missing obviously did not have life jackets. The people who were able to get life jackets either from the Navy or from the people on land did survive.

For one of the 42 who survived—one man—it just so happened that, as the boat turned around, he got on the bow and, as it turned and almost scraped against the cliff, he was able to jump from the bow of the boat to the land—to Australia. So he leapt from the boat to Australia. He got mauled by the rocks, but he survived. Compare that with other people, who actually got their hands on a rope and were pulled up onto the land but, when their hands hit the lip of the rock—because their hands were then ripped to shreds and, of course, the natural reaction is to let go—drowned. So they touched Australia but they drowned just because they were unlucky, I guess. As for the man who was able to jump from the boat, I would call him the luckiest man in Australia. I am reminded of a quote from a Clive James book I was reading recently. I think he was quoting the author and Holocaust survivor Primo Levi; it might have been someone else, but that is my recollection of it. The quote is, 'Only chance will save you.' That is why I am thinking it was Primo Levi. Look at those circumstances where that one guy was able to leap onto the shore.

Annabel Crabb wrote an article after speaking to me on Christmas Island, and I will quote from her article in The Drum on Friday, 10 June:

Mr Perrett was on Christmas Island, hearing first-hand the testimony of those who watched dozens of souls drown under the most traumatic of circumstances when their boat smashed to pieces against the island's cliffs last December. What (Mr Perrett asked in his text message) was that quote from Hamlet about being cruel to be kind?

The quote—"I must be cruel only to be kind. Thus bad begins and worse remains behind" …

The article then goes on to explore what that quote was about. But I do say that this whole experience made me realise how horrible people smuggling is and how we must do whatever we can to prevent such a circumstance arising again. As the member for Cook, Scott Morrison, indicated in his speech, there have been boats that have disappeared. This was a boat where 50 people lost their lives right in front of Australian observers, but there are other boats that just disappear out there. They do not disappear off the radar, because, as we know, radar will not pick up a 20-metre-long—or 20-foot-long, some of them—wooden vessel. We need to do whatever we can. We need to regulate government policy to make sure that we prevent such tragedies from happening again. I am pleased to say that the foreign minister, the immigration minister and the Prime Minister are working on making sure that we have a policy that breaks the people-smuggler business model.

I wish well all those people who saw the tragedy, because I know it affected a lot of the residents of Christmas Island. It affected the members of the committee hearing their testimony. To all of those who saw the tragedy and all of those who tried to avert the tragedy, especially from Australian Customs, the Australian Defence Force, the border protection people and DIAC, who had to deal with the aftermath of it: I wish all of you well. Most importantly, I particularly want to wish well the children, grandchildren and the great grandchildren of the 42 who survived the tragedy. I hope they make proud those who chance did not save.

Debate adjourned.

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