Don Randall (Canning, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Local Government) Share this | Hansard source

It is pronounced Tuvalu and the capital is Funafuti for those who cannot say the name of it. The Labor Party seem to want to say it is our fault because we will not give them the discretion to go to Malaysia because, in their own words, it is a place that did not sign the convention. They still seem to have a problem with Nauru even though this was a facility that was run by Australians and managed by Australians. We knew that the treatment of the asylum seekers there was well and truly monitored by Australians. Dare I say this is just political bloody-mindedness—they have a solution and, because it was something that we did, they are not going to do it.

We have heard the Prime Minister and others say, 'It's too far away and it's too dear.' It was not too far away before. We saw a plane parked up at Christmas Island detention centre for days and days waiting for the decision on the Malaysian solution—so much about expense. They were talking about a billion dollars to reopen Nauru. Many of the huts are still there, much of the infrastructure is still there. In the six years of the Pacific solution, which included Manus Island, the total cost was $289 million. Where do you get a figure of a billion to use Nauru now? It is a figure just plucked out of the air. I hope they do not blame the bureaucrats for that and say it is a figure given to them by the department, because I would like to see the justification for that. In fact I would like to see the figures on how they arrive at a billion. It is a very expensive option. It must come with jacuzzis and spas and everything else if it is going to cost a billion.

We need to maintain the offshore solution. I know the Left and the Greens want an onshore solution. I even heard Michael Raper from the Red Cross this morning, who used to be from ACOSS—this is part of his core business, this is how he gets employed—saying that he wants to see an onshore solution. He said, 'It's just a handful of people; there are many more people that come as overstayers.' Those who are overstayers have a very much reduced success rate of getting a visa. Those who come by boat—and that is why they pay a people smuggler up to $20,000—have closer to an 80 per cent success rate of getting a visa. So why wouldn't you try to come by boat when you have a successful outcome like that?

This is, again, a mess that the Labor Party have found themselves in. It is a mess of their own making. Paul Murray in an article on 21 September said:

This problem is all Ms Gillard's. And the next boat is another policy failure for her, no one else.

This is a self-made problem, a self-inflicted wound and we are not going to bail them out. We have given them a solution. Unless they take it, it is their problem.

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