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

I was about to say that last night this nation saw a tragedy of the first order. The Australian people woke this morning to see that tragedy and wonder why the Australian parliament—which apparently believes in offshore processing; which apparently believes that offshore processing is a deterrent to getting on a boat and coming to Australia—cannot vote for it. Why wouldn't the parliament vote for something that both sides of the parliament say they believe in? Why wouldn't the parliament join as one and say, 'We disagree over many things. We disagree over methods, we disagree over different resolutions, but we do agree on offshore processing because we believe it can save lives'? Both sides of the aisle in this House—in fairness, not every member; there are members of the crossbench who do not agree—say that we should have an offshore processing regime in Australia. We have a different approach to the methods that can be used, but there is only one side of the House which is prepared to vote for offshore processing. There is only one side of the House which is prepared to come into the chamber and vote to give the government of the day the power to implement offshore processing in a way it sees fit.

The honourable member for Cook has gone through the opposition's model. It is true that we do have a different approach. The opposition say that their approach—and it is—is to open a detention centre at Nauru. We disagree because all the expert advice to the government is that that would not form an effective deterrent. That is advice that has been given to the opposition. Further, that is the advice which has been given to the parliament before the Senate estimates. The Secretary of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship said:

Our view is not simply that the Nauru option would not work but that the combination of circumstances that existed at the end of 2001 could not be repeated with success. That is a view that we held for some time—and it is of course not just a view of my department; it is the collective view of agencies involved in providing advice in this area.

That is the collective view of national security experts—the advisers to government—which has been given to this government and made available to the Leader of the Opposition, to the member for Cook, to the member for Stirling, to Senator Brandis and to other opposition members. They have been given the advice that it would not form an effective deterrent and could not work again, and I think they know that.

I know that the member for Berowra knows that. The member for Berowra, a former holder of the office of minister for immigration, in relation to the policies that he had implemented and in relation to their relevance, today said, 'You're going to have to use all the measures that were used, but then you'd be looking around to see what more you could do. It's going to require a lot more effort than any of the measures that are being spoken about at the moment.' I wonder what they are. We have not heard those. The member for Berowra has conceded that his policies, if implemented again, would not work and they would need to do more, but the member for Cook has not said what that would be, in terms of additional policies, and perhaps he would make announcements. But the member for Cook says that Nauru remains their policy, and I accept that. They say that it would be more effective.

The member for Cook just criticised the Malaysia arrangement, which I will come to in a moment. He said, 'Look, 1,000 people have arrived since it was signed. Sixteen hundred people have arrived since it was announced. Therefore it is a failure.' Let's put aside the fact that it has not been implemented—the parliament has not allowed it to be implemented—but, if the measure of success is the number of arrivals, what does the member for Cook say to the 1,900 people who arrived after the announcement of the detention centre at Nauru? Apparently that failed.

Mr Morrison interjecting—

The member for Cook says it was open-ended. There were only 1,400 places at the Nauru detention centre. The member for Cook has yet to reveal what he would do if he were the minister for immigration when it was full and what he would do in terms of resettlement. Would he have an agreement with other countries to resettle refugees? I would be interested to know. Which countries is he going to ring up on the phone? He is fond of telling us to pick up the phone. Who is he going to ring and ask, 'Could you take the refugees who are on Nauru, because I don't want to take them?' Maybe Iran. He is a big fan of a people-swap deal with Iran. Maybe he would ring Iran. The fact that most of them would be Iranian might be a slight technical difficulty that I am sure he would overcome. Who else is he going to call? Perhaps he could let us know. Where are the refugees on Nauru going to be resettled? If he cannot answer that question, the Australian people are entitled to conclude that the answer is the same as last time, and that answer is Australia and New Zealand.

Mr Ian Macfarlane interjecting—

The member for Groom says that is rubbish. Ninety-five per cent of refugees who were processed on Nauru were resettled in Australia and New Zealand, and the member for Groom says that is rubbish. I would be interested to know what the member for Groom says the figure is of refugees who were resettled. So, there we have the Nauru policy.

The member for Cook again correctly outlined the second limb of his policy, which is temporary protection visas. Temporary protection visas are not something that this side of the parliament supports. We will continue to argue against them and we will not implement them for several reasons. Firstly, we do not believe they were in any way a humanitarian response. Secondly, one of the elements of temporary protection visas is that they deny family reunion. I can understand the reasons that motivated the previous government to do that—I really do understand the policy rationale of saying: 'Let's take away family reunion; that might discourage people from coming to Australia'—but it has been tried, and it failed. When you remove family reunion it does not discourage people from coming to Australia by boat; it encourages them. When family reunion is not available it means more people get on a boat. It means more people risking their lives on the boat journey to Australia because it is the only way of coming to Australia. More women and children on boats is a direct result of temporary protection visas. Eight thousand people arrived after temporary protection visas were introduced, and the number of people arriving went up—

Mr Ruddock interjecting—

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