George Christensen (Dawson, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is a pleasure to follow the member for Berowra and what was an enlightening speech. We have heard from government members today that people are sick of the politics. Well, yes, they are right; people are sick of the politics. They are sick of the politics of failure from this government on this issue of asylum seekers. They are sick of the politics of excuses from this government on this issue. They are sick of the politics of no accountability from the government on this issue. More importantly, they are sick of the politics of delay that we have had from the government on this issue.

The member for Cook, in speaking to this matter and moving an amendment to the motion, on behalf of the coalition, belled the cat by saying that, really, the government have been dragged kicking and screaming to the point they are at today of putting before us this motion to have that great no-no of Nauru be an option for offshore processing. I would think that the Labor Party would take away from this whole saga a lesson in life, and that lesson is: if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Under the member for Berowra's time as minister for immigration, it certainly wasn't 'broke'. In fact, he had fixed it. With the then Prime Minister John Howard, he had fixed the massive problem we had of porous borders, with boat after boat coming in. It was the Pacific solution, under the member for Berowra, that actually fixed the problem. But Labor thought that the fix was the problem. The current Prime Minister, back in May 2003, told the House:

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—

wrong according to Labor's principles. Sadly, the Labor Party came to government and immediately set about doing what they said they would do in opposition, and that was dismantling the solution that the member for Berowra had implemented. The then Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Senator Evans, said, puffing out his chest:

Labor committed to abolishing the Pacific Solution and this was one the first things the Rudd Labor Government did on taking office. It was also one of my greatest pleasures in politics.

I wonder how he is feeling today now that his greatest pleasure in politics—ruining a solution—has come back to bite him and the government.

They did find a solution; they turned it into a problem and the problem quickly snowballed into a crisis. The Prime Minister herself was the architect of this crisis because she was the one who, as shadow immigration minister, devised the plan to undo the member for Berowra's Pacific solution.

With the former immigration minister saying that undoing it was his greatest pleasure in politics, you have to feel sorry for the current Minister for Immigration and Citizenship because he was certainly handed a parcel which was about to go off. I feel some sense of sorrow for him because he consistently said—it was leaked through the newspapers to the cabinet—that Nauru was the solution. He told them repeatedly, but the Prime Minister would not accept it and the caucus would not accept it. He was told, 'No, you cannot go back to the member for Berowra's solution. You have to find a new way of doing it.' He was told no by his current caucus. So the situation deteriorated, as this government lost control of the nation's borders and the government failed to provide one of the most basic functions that any government should provide—that is, ensuring our borders are secure.

The minister then began to look around for some sort of solution, for a saviour, for another country—anyone but Nauru—who would take on and process the illegal immigrants coming onto Australian soil. It was like getting a secret committee together, blindfolding them and getting them to pick a country at random on an atlas, a country where offshore processing could be done. First, it was East Timor. That may have been a good solution, had somebody actually told the East Timorese about it. The first time they found that out was when they read it in the newspapers, as did Australians. That thought bubble came and went quickly when it was popped by the East Timorese parliament. Then Manus Island popped up as another little thought bubble, but it did not last an afternoon. Finally, they settled on the one that they thought would be it—Malaysia.

Malaysia was going to be the new solution, for the Gillard Labor government, to the crisis they had created themselves with illegal immigration. But words come back to bite because, back in July 2010, the Prime Minister told listeners on radio 6PR that she would rule out anywhere that is not a signatory to the refugee convention. A bit later, at a doorstop press conference, again in July 2010, she went on to say, 'We want to deal with countries which are signatories to the refugee convention.' One month later, at another doorstop, she said, 'My policy, the policy I have committed to, is that I want to see a regional processing centre in a country that is a signatory to the United Nations convention on refugees.' Three times we had the statement that the country had to be a signatory to the United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Refugees to take the illegal immigrants that we wanted to process offshore. As we know, Malaysia is not one of those countries. In fact, it must be said that they have a terrible track record when it comes to dealing with illegal immigrants.

This crisis has been created by the government. I know that many decent Australians would welcome genuine refugees, but something sticks in their throat when they see people from landlocked countries who fly to Indonesia and then pay thousands of dollars to get on a boat to sneak into this country, to the detriment of people who are waiting in refugee camps in places like Africa. That sticks in people's craws, but the fact is we still recognise that they are human beings and where they get sent to actually matters. Sending them to Malaysia was not the solution. Sending them to a place where they could have been flogged, where there was a risk that the rattan could have been used, was not an option. The Liberal-National coalition said that from the get go, but this government wanted to push the point.

When they realised we were not going to have a bar of it, they proposed something even more stupid, if there can be such a thing, and that was the Adopt-a-Refugee Family Program. Australians were invited to open their doors to an illegal immigrant, to take the men, to feed and clothe them and give them a bed, and the government would give them $300 a week for lowering the pressure on the already strained detention system in this country. The Greens may love that idea, and there are a few bleeding hearts who would love that idea, but I think to myself that, if the government can afford to pay $300 a week for people to housing illegal immigrants, what the hell are we doing with the homeless in this country? That thought was first and foremost on my mind and on the minds of a lot of other people. From that stupid idea, which came and went, we then came back to this place to find the Malaysia solution being pushed down our throats: we had to fix the problem, we had to fix the crisis—that Labor had created. We said no. We held the line on that.

The Prime Minister and the immigration minister then had to outsource this responsibility to an expert panel.

The expert panel deliberated, and then it came back and recommended a range of measures which were basically straight out of the coalition policy book. One of the key recommendations—and this is what has led to the motion before us here today—was the reopening of the offshore processing centre on Nauru. So the government capitulated and the legislation was passed some weeks back. But, when the legislation was brought to this place, people such as the member for Fremantle got up and told us how wrong offshore processing on Nauru is. I do believe that the hearts of a lot of those members opposite are not fully in offshore processing on Nauru. They do not want to go down this track and they are half-hearted in their approval of doing so; and, as the member for Cook said, they were dragged kicking and screaming to this place to vote for it.

I read earlier that one of the reasons the Prime Minister would not originally support offshore processing on Nauru was the cost. She claimed that it was going to cost $1 billion to reopen the centre on Nauru. We will see what happens to the budget bottom line and the so-called surplus to determine whether the Prime Minister was right, but the fact is that offshore processing on Nauru did not cost that much under the coalition—probably because we are better managers. It cost $239 million.

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