Laurie Ferguson (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I come to this debate with an abiding interest in many of the human rights issues that compel people to come to this land, I come to this debate with an almost daily opportunity in my office to interview people who are fighting refugee cases and I, also like the member opposite, come to this debate with the experience of Western Sydney where these issues bite deeply. One of the things I have learnt is that the Australian people, who to my mind are reasonably fair minded, want to have a government with control in this policy area. They want to have a belief that the government can determine which refugees from which lands enter this country. It then gives the opportunity for the government of the day, Labor or Liberal, to respond to the demands of the UNHCR, to look at the UNHCR's right in saying that this year we should look at the condition of the Rohingyas or at other Burmese groups. The people of Australia, on the other hand, can be dragged into an opposition to immigration, a concern with the process if they do not think that the government and its department of immigration have some say in the process.

We saw the experience in Europe last week when, in the Danish elections, a Left majority was re-elected after a decade of conservative government. Even then in that victory the conservative Danish People's Party, although they went down from 13.8 to 12.3, captured that percentage of the vote. We have the experiences in Sweden, the Netherlands and Denmark. These are countries where the population has lost confidence that the government is actually having a say in the refugee policy. That is the way in which I approach this debate.

Last week the Prime Minister, in the aftermath of a court case and a result which was not predicted by Senator Brandis or any of the experts opposite, on behalf of this government said to the opposition, 'Let's try and negotiate an outcome here which gives us some certainty in regard to what we believe should be the outcome and would give the opposition some certainty as well if they were elected.' Of course, last week we had very loud contributions from those opposite saying, 'Nauru: it's covered, no problems. We're convinced that it's unchallengeable.'

This week there is a different tune. I heard Senator Brandis this morning indicating on ABC radio that perhaps Nauru is equally challengeable. The opposition was confronted with the situation on Friday and in the last few days that we could get together and get a policy which gives some guarantee that the government of the day and its department of immigration would have some say. It has been thrown back in the government's face. The pretext is the concern with whether countries have signed the UN Charter. This, apparently, is now paramount. They cannot agree with the government because the government is supposedly negotiating with Malaysia. Other speakers have been through this. It did not seem to concern them when they sent people to Nauru originally, and they have proposed it again—to a country which has the 23rd highest population density on this earth, a per capita income— (Quorum formed)

As I said, seemingly 'Nauru or nothing' is their attitude when they are asked to cooperate on a national solution to this. It is a country that has one of the highest population densities in the world and is amongst the poorest nations on this earth. It is a country where people would essentially have no work rights. They say that affiliation to the convention and Nauru is the be-all and end-all.

As other speakers have indicated, there is nothing apparently wrong with sending people to Indonesia, despite the fact that it is not a signatory. On last night's program the shadow minister, of course, said, 'Oh, that's not offshore processing; that's carting people there in a boat.' They talk about the signatories being the be-all and end-all. Many of the countries where we are receiving refugees from—Zimbabwe, which so affects many opposition members opposite, particularly from Western Australia; Sudan; Iran—are signatories. Speaking of Iran, we see the inconsistency of those opposite. Not only are they demanding that they be signatories in regard to this measure, but Iran itself was suggested by the opposition spokesman last year as being in some ways a better option than Malaysia. Quite frankly, Malaysia is a country which has recently moved towards reforming its internal security legislation and which is giving rights to not only the people that we negotiated for, the people that we were sending back, but also the rest of their claimants in the country.

We have a situation here where it is no surprise that they have tried to stymie a government proposal which they are dead scared is going to be an option which is going to be an effective deterrent. It is interesting to note that on Nauru, the be-all and end-all, the then shadow minister, the member for Murray, said on 1 December 2008:

The closure of Nauru and Manus Island…Of course they had basically—what shall we say—outlived their need…I don't think we need to again have Nauru and Manus Island operating, because we've got of course Christmas Island.

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