Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Home Affairs ) Share this | Hansard source

The time for politics on this issue is over. We have been fighting about this issue for too long. As I said a few weeks ago, we have been fighting about this issue since the Tampa, for 11 years, and, while we have been fighting, people have been dying. More than 400 people have died in the last nine months. Two hundred died in December, 11 in February and more than 90 in June. One hundred more died two weeks ago just off the coast of Indonesia. The people of Australia are sick of us fighting on this. They want us to work together. That is why the government brought together the expert panel led by Angus Houston, which also included Mr Michael L'Estrange and Mr Paris Aristotle. This is one of the things that they recommended: the designation of Nauru as a regional processing country.

Today the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship has made that designation by legislative instrument. He has just outlined to the House why this is in the national interest and has provided the House with a number of documents to support this. They include a copy of the designation, a copy of the memorandum of understanding with Nauru signed on 29 August this year, a statement about his consultations with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in relation to this designation, a summary of advice received from the UNHCR about the designation, and a statement about the arrangements that are in place or are to be put in place in Nauru for the treatment of persons taken there. This motion now before the House seeks approval of this designation. Upon approval of both houses of the parliament, this designation will enable the first transfer of offshore entry persons to Nauru. As the minister said in a press conference this morning, it is expected that that may be in the latter part of this week.

We are committed to implementing this and committed to implementing all of the recommendations of the Houston report. That includes increasing the humanitarian program to 20,000 places per annum. This is another area which should be an area of bipartisanship. A few months ago, the opposition indicated support for this. The Leader of the Opposition said that it was something that they would do in government and something that needed to be accepted now. Unfortunately, since then the opposition have said that they would be reluctant to support this increase. I think that is disappointing. This should be an area of bipartisanship. It is one of the things that the Houston expert panel recommended. It is an important part of making sure that we have people processed in a safe way and that people do not make the often disastrous decision to get on a boat and drown at sea. I urge members of the House to consider this, reconsider their position and revert to the previous position that the opposition had on this issue.

Search and rescue is another area where we need to work together. It is another area where bipartisanship is important. This motion provides me with an opportunity to provide an update on the discussions that took place in Indonesia last week. Last week the Minister for Defence, the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport and I travelled to Indonesia. We reached an agreement with our Indonesian counterparts to do a number of practical things that will help to save lives. We received a briefing from the Australian Maritime Safety Authority as well as from the Indonesian search and rescue authority, Basarnas, about the work that they do. They presented us with a number of case studies that outlined the work they do and how they do it.

In particular, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority, AMSA, provided the case study of the Rabaul Queen, in February of this year, just off the coast of Papua New Guinea, where 250 people's lives were saved.

The AMSA team provided an explanation for how that task was done and why it was so successful. The three key points they made were that skilled operators who knew what needed to be done and how to do it were very important, information on where merchant vessels were was very important and the ability to communicate directly and quickly with those merchant vessels was what helped to save lives on that day.

The information that came out of that case study helped to develop the recommendations that were put to the meeting of Australian and Indonesian ministers, and those recommendations were the basis on which we agreed to do a number of important things. That included embedding AMSA officers inside Barsanas and vice versa; providing Basarnas with a near real-time picture of merchant ships in its search and rescue region; and providing Basarnas with the capability to communicate with merchant vessels via Inmarsat satellite communications. Indonesia has a large search and rescue area and approximately 1,000 merchant vessels travel through it every single day. That is a very large number of merchant vessels, and they potentially provide a ready source of assistance when vessels get into trouble.

That is the case for asylum seekers who are travelling from Indonesia to Australia but it is also the case for Indonesian ferries that travel between the many islands along the Indonesian archipelago. Hundreds of people have died trying to travel to Australia from Indonesia over the last 12 months, but many more have died travelling between the islands of Indonesia. We were told, for example, that in the week or two of festivities and recreation after Ramadan 900 people in Indonesia had died either on the roads or at sea. Basarnas has an enormous task—a large search and rescue area—and providing them with the capability to identify merchant ships in their search and rescue area and to communicate with them quickly has the potential to save the lives not only of people seeking asylum but also of Indonesian people travelling from one part of their country to another. That is why it is a practical initiative that will save lives, and it deserves the bipartisan support of this House.

We also agreed, in principle, to further rapid clearance of Australian aircraft to operate in Indonesian territorial airspace and to land and refuel at suitable airfields in Indonesia. Again, this was a discussion that took place after an analysis of the disaster that occurred two weeks ago and how we could address this issue. The ability of Australian aircraft—the Dash 8s and so forth—to land in Indonesia, refuel and get back up in the air and search for vessels that might be in distress is something that will help to save lives and it deserves the support of both sides of the House.

The Australian people are sick of the politics of this issue. They want us to work together to fix it. That is why we have brought together the expert panel and that is why we have agreed to implement all of its recommendations, including the one the House is discussing now. That is what we are doing with our Indonesian counterparts as well. I urge all members of the House to agree to the measure.

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