Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Justice, Customs and Border Protection) Share this | Hansard source

I second the amendment. I, along with the shadow minister for immigration, welcome this designation here today. I also support the amendment put forward by the coalition. To understand the reasons why I support the designation and support the amendment, I think we need to understand some of the history of this issue, because that history will be a useful guide for how we should proceed in the future.

This is a backflip and a change of heart of monumental proportions. The Pacific solution as it was implemented by the previous government, the Howard government, in 2001 was absolutely demonised by the Labor Party for over a decade. Not only was that policy prescription demonised; the people who put it in place were also unfairly demonised. For well over a decade that has been the response of the Labor Party to offshore processing. The people who are currently still in their ministerial positions have stated this position incredibly frequently.

The Minister for Immigration and Citizenship has up until very recently said that processing people offshore on Nauru and Manus Island would not work. In the Australian Financial Review in June last year, the current minister for immigration, the person who has just introduced this designation, said:

Nauru, in the absence of a regional agreement, is simply another offshore processing centre … it doesn't break the business model of the people smugglers.

In November last year this minister called the Pacific solution, which was offshore processing in Nauru and Manus, 'discredited'. In May of last year the immigration minister attacked the Pacific solution as 'inhumanely delaying the resettlement of hundreds of refugees'. In June of last year:

Immigration Minister Chris Bowen says he will not reactivate offshore processing on Nauru because it won't break the people-smugglers' business model: "If you go to Nauru you would end up in Australia, that's what happened before."

He also said that going to Nauru was too harsh. He said:

There is plenty of evidence and research showing Nauru caused considerable mental damage to people who were there for long periods of time.

Further, he said:

Nauru, in the absence of a regional agreement, is simply another offshore processing centre. Now that means people would be ending up in Australia, it doesn't break the business model of the people smugglers.

The previous government's approach was to leave people on Nauru for a very long period of time, but eventually they all settled in Australia—

something that of course was not true—

which is the worst of both worlds, in terms of not being able to break the people smugglers business model but a lot of damage done to people along the way.

As recently as this year the minister was saying:

I think you're 100 per cent right—

this is in response to a question on ABC radio—

I think the Opposition has finally realised, finally publicly admitted at least that there's holes all through their policy in relation to Nauru …

The Prime Minister, who prior to becoming Prime Minister was for a period of time the shadow immigration minister when the Labor Party were in opposition, went even further. In debating a migration legislation amendment bill in the House in 2003, she said:

The so-called Pacific solution is nothing more than the world's most expensive detour sign. It does not stop you getting to Australia; it just puts you through a detour on the way while Australian taxpayers pay for it and pay for it.

Instead of stunts like this, it is time the Howard government faced up to engaging in a long-term solution in relation to refugees and asylum seekers. The so-called Pacific solution is not a long-term solution.

These comments were made in 2003, when she went on to say:

Can anyone in this place really imagine that Australia will be processing asylum seeker claims on Nauru in 10 or 20 years?

She went further. She said:

No rational person—I would put it as highly as that—would suggest that in 10 or 20 years we will still be processing asylum seeker claims on Nauru.

…   …   …

To that end Labor has given the following commitments. Labor will end the so-called Pacific solution—the processing and detaining of asylum seekers on Pacific islands—because it is costly, unsustainable and wrong as a matter of principle.

Madam Deputy Speaker, I highlight that history just to show you one very important aspect of why this designation today, although welcome, does not go far enough. The fact that the Labor Party have vilified and demonised these policies for over a decade and have now been dragged, kicking and screaming, to introduce these policies reinforces a point that we have made here many times before, and that is that, on this issue, we have been right the whole time. The opposition were 100 per cent correct in our approach when we were in government and have been 100 per cent correct in opposition. For over a decade, we have held the same policies true. During that period, the Labor Party have been wrong for the whole time. They have got it wrong consistently in opposition and they have got it wrong consistently in government, with tragic and very real consequences for our country but also for the people who were seeking asylum here.

To get an idea about the magnitude of the backflip that we are discussing today, all you need to do is look at the terms of the designation and the reasons that the immigration minister—a man who up to and including this year has been saying that offshore processing in Nauru was wrong and was not going to give us a result—has listed. Under paragraph 13, he says:

(2) I consider designating Nauru to be a regional processing country will discourage irregular and dangerous maritime voyages and thereby reduce the risk of the loss of life at sea;

(3) I consider designating Nauru to be a regional processing country will promote the maintenance of a fair and orderly Refugee and Humanitarian Program that retains the confidence of the Australian people;

These are the points that the opposition have been making for over a decade and that the Labor Party have been denying for over a decade. Now, in black and white, they admit that we were right and they were wrong. In his reasons for designating Nauru as a place for offshore processing, the minister talks further about its discouraging irregular and dangerous maritime voyages and he says:

I think that designating Nauru to be a regional processing country may act as a circuit breaker in relation to the recent surge in the number of irregular and dangerous maritime voyages to Australia. The surge in arrivals is indicated by the following figures my Department has provided to me:

(1) From 2002 to 2008 there were fewer than 10 boats a year. The total number of passengers was fewer than 200 each year.

In fact, on average there were three boats per year during that time. He goes on:

(2) In 2009, there were 60 boats carrying 2,726 passengers.

(3) In 2010, there were 134 boats carrying 6,555 passengers.

During that time, if either the shadow minister for immigration or I were to ask a question about the flow of illegal boats coming to Australia, the Labor Party would whistle quietly, and that would intimate that somehow we were dog whistling and it was not a legitimate topic to be asking questions about in the House. They did not think it was a problem. If they did get up and respond to questions about the issue, they would say: 'It's got nothing to do with us. It's got everything to do with push factors. It's the international situation, that we cannot control, that is leading to this spike in illegal arrivals.' They refused to acknowledge that it was the policy changes that they brought in in 2008 that led to people smugglers going back into business. Because they refused to acknowledge that it was their policy changes that created the problem, they refused to do anything about it. The first thing they needed to form a solution was to acknowledge that they created the problem themselves, when they changed the robust system of border protection that they inherited from the coalition when the government changed in 2007.

The minister goes on in this designation to say:

A substantial number of lives have been lost at sea as a result of the activities of people smugglers. Since 2001, it is estimated that 1064 passengers have died (or gone missing, presumed dead). Of these, 704 deaths have occurred since October 2009. The figures above include the most recent tragedy on 30 August 2012, during which an estimated 100 people lost their lives following the sinking of a vessel some 42 nautical miles off the Indonesian coast.

That just reminds the House of the enormous human tragedy that has resulted from the fact that we have not stopped people smuggling. While the burden of these deaths rests solely with the people smugglers, it is a very sad fact and one that cannot be contradicted that it was the policies that have been pursued by this government that allowed the people smugglers to flourish. That is the tragedy—that, when we were faced with all the evidence about people smugglers ramping up their activities in bringing people down to Australia illegally, the government, firstly, refused to acknowledge that it was a problem and, secondly, refused to acknowledge that it was their policies that were creating this problem. With this designation today, we have them belatedly acknowledging that they got it wrong in 2008, when they abolished the Pacific solution. We are now in September 2012, and it has cost Australia very dearly. It has cost the asylum seekers, of course, very dearly—all the people who have lost their lives on this voyage.

The minister goes on to say, within this designation, that he believes that those considering travel to Australia on irregular maritime voyages will become aware that their protection claims may now be assessed in Nauru and, because of that fact, they will be discouraged from risking their lives in taking this dangerous voyage to Australia. That just reinforces something we have been saying for well over a decade and something that was backed up by the evidence—that is, when this policy was introduced, it had that exact effect: it stopped people smugglers being able to tell people who were seeking illegal entry to Australia that they could provide that greatest product of all, permanent residence of our country. All the evidence was there, but the Labor Party refused to acknowledge it until today, when we find the belated acknowledgement, with this designation, that the coalition had it right all the time, that offshore processing on Nauru and in other places in the Pacific was a very important way to stop the people smugglers' business model.

The reason that I go through this history, the reason why I am highlighting that this designation today repudiates so much of what the Labor Party have stood for on border protection for the past decade and the reason why I am highlighting the fact that they have got it so terribly wrong and that there have been such terrible consequences because of those wrong judgements is the fact that they continue to make the wrong judgement on this issue. They believe—and I hope that this will be the case, but unfortunately I do not believe that it will be—that reintroducing offshore processing on Nauru will have the effect that this parliament desires in stopping people smuggling and stopping the flow of illegal boats. But because they have had so many different positions and because they have backflipped so extensively, because they have stood for things that are exactly the opposite of what we are discussing here today, I do not believe that just reintroducing offshore processing is going to be enough.

What they really need to do is send the strongest possible signal that they have learnt their lesson and that they are now serious about pursuing policies that will stop people smuggling. If they were going to do that, if they were going to send the strongest possible signal that they could, they would not adopt only one of the three policies they should be pursuing, one of the three policies that formed the core policies that had the effect of stopping people smuggling when the Howard government introduced the Pacific solution along with turning the boats around and temporary protection visas. Those two extra planks of the policy—turning the boats around when it is safe to do so and the reintroduction of temporary protection visas—would mean that the parliament and the government were doing everything they could do to undermine people smuggling. Because they have had so many false starts on this, that is exactly what the Labor Party must do. They need to show the people smugglers not one crack of light that they still do not have the resolve that they need to tackle them. If they were going to show that they have the resolve and if they were going to make sure that they attack people smuggling in every available way, they would adopt, holus-bolus, the policies that the Howard government used to stop people smuggling in the past.

That is what the shadow immigration minister's amendment does to this designation. It is a sensible amendment. It will do what the parliament desires in terms of stopping people smuggling. It has my wholehearted support. And, if the government were serious about stopping people smuggling, it would have their wholehearted support as well.

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