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

I am pleased to speak on the motion before us today, and I acknowledge the role that Minister Bowen has played in bringing it to the House. Members of the Labor Party in this House could be described as refuseniks on offshore processing since it was brought into this House; they have refused all along to admit that Nauru and the Pacific solution were successful. When John Howard left office and the then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd came to office, only four people who had come here by boat were in detention.

The member for Berowra, the former immigration minister, assured us that Kim Beazley, when he was Leader of the Opposition, had come to him to say that he would not support the bill which the coalition government brought to the House and which brought into effect the Pacific solution unless human rights obligations were locked into it. When the minister was able to convince him that they were, Kim Beazley brought the Labor Party along with him and we ended up with the Pacific solution.

But what is the situation with this government? Minister Bowen said initially that offshore processing on Nauru was too expensive and would not work. The Prime Minister said the same. The immigration minister then went to cabinet and tried to get Nauru up as an option and was knocked down. Yet today the minister is promoting the government's recent offshore processing bill in which Nauru, along with Manus Island, is held up as the solution to the problem of illegal arrivals. This bill was put together because the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, subcontracted responsibility for policy-making to the Houston committee. There were a number of deaths at sea, and, as a result of those deaths, we spent much time and a great deal of anguish in debate in this parliament. There were tears and emotive speeches and a stalemate; and, after there were further deaths at sea, the Prime Minister subcontracted the three-member panel led by Mr Houston to come up with a policy. Among the panel's policy recommendations was offshore processing on Nauru and Manus Island. Why did it take Mr Houston's panel to recommend a policy on border protection that the Labor Party would use?

A lot of florid and unnecessary language has been used in the debate on border protection. In the House today we even heard the Acting Prime Minister, Wayne Swan, accusing the opposition of being responsible for deaths at sea.

We had the member for Isaacs, Mark Dreyfus, at the doors saying Tony Abbott wants people to come by boat so they can drown because that will be an electoral advantage for him. What a disgraceful thing to say about anyone in this House. And he repeated it outside. Mr Deputy Speaker Mitchell, one of your colleagues—one of the members of the Labor Party—came to me and said he believed that was actionable. I have made that petition known: that one of the Labor Party members said that that language—outside of this House, outside of privilege—was actionable. Yet Tony Abbott is obviously good enough not to pull the trigger on that.

One of the interesting things we are reaching at in this particular debate is, as the shadow immigration minister calls it, the immigration lottery. Since this was brought to this House, we know that 1,800 people—heading towards 2,000—have arrived. They are meant to go to Manus Island and Nauru. As a result of the bill that is going through this House today to put the instruments in place, they are now meant to go by the end of this week. Yet I am confused. On 13 August, when this committee's recommendations were announced and the press conference was taken by the Prime Minister, the immigration minister and others, Andrew Probyn, from the West AustralianI recall it vividly because I was watching it, and the transcript will support this—asked immigration minister Bowen: 'So, does that mean anyone coming after 3.45 today will go to Manus Island and Nauru?' And the minister said yes. What we have today is a backtrack on this. We are not sure now if it really does mean as of 3.45 on 13 August, or, 'we're going to go and select a few who are appropriate to go to these offshore processing centres'. To me, it is absolute hypocrisy.

The amendments the opposition has brought to this House are obviously sensible. You cannot have a three-legged stool with one leg, and the three-legged stool so far has only one leg, and that is offshore processing at Manus Island and Nauru. You have to have the temporary protection visas. The sugar is still in this policy in that, if you can make it to mainland Australia, you will get a visa. And why wouldn't they? Just think about it: you can enter the Centrelink system, you can enter the health system, you can enter the education system. So of course it is still a pull factor.

The other factor I want to raise is the turning back of the boats. We hear from those opposite that it is too dangerous and we cannot put our service personnel in such a dangerous position. I tell you, we are doing it all the time. We are doing in the Middle East; we are doing it in a whole range of areas of conflict. We are doing it with pirates off the African coast; we are boarding boats there, in our RIBs. I have been on these boats, on defence deployments, where our men and women go aboard these generally nefarious boats at sea and check them out. They are trained to do it, and they want to do it.

That brings me to the Sri Lankans. The Sri Lankans are doing it now. Recently I wrote a letter to the newspaper The Island, which was published on Thursday 9 August, backing the fact that the government of Sri Lanka is out there actively turning boats back from the port of Trincomalee that end up out at sea. A few of them still get through to the Cocos Islands. I will just read a little bit:

Australian MP Don Randall has praised Sri Lanka’s efforts to tackle what he called the evil trade in people, while urging the Australian government to throw its weight behind GoSL. MP Randall, in a special statement to ‘The Island’, congratulated GoSL for setting an example of how to deal with the evil trade in people. "Australia needs to get behind GoSL with equipment, intelligence sharing and financial help in support of ongoing operations," the MP said. The parliamentarian assured his support for GoSL efforts to counter critics and criminal elements both at home and abroad.

I would love to table this, but I know I would not be allowed, so you can read it online.

This brings me to the cant hypocrisy of members opposite. The member for Calwell was here earlier; I know she is not comfortable with this. And I know people like the member for Banks are not comfortable with this legislation. But what really sticks in my throat came from the member for Fremantle, a state colleague. I have written to her local newspaper on this issue. I would love to table that letter, but I am sure that if I tried it would be rejected, so I will read a little bit of it. On 16 August I wrote to the Fremantle Gazette:

It was with complete hypocrisy that the Member for Fremantle, Melissa Parke, gave her vote in the Parliament to the Malaysian five-for-one people swap deal that would see those seeking asylum sent to Malaysia.

And, more recently, she voted with the Government and Coalition to commence offshore processing of asylum seekers when she had spoken out against it many times, claiming it was an abuse of human rights.

I went on to say that she has not stopped talking about human rights ever since.

The member then wrote back to the newspaper, on 28 August, and said: 'Don Randall has once again got it wrong, which unfortunately has never stopped him from making personal attacks.' But there were no personal attacks, just the facts—the Votes and Proceedings of this House. She said:

I abstained from the vote on the Migration Act Amendment that passed the Australian Parliament, and while I support the end of the political stand-off on the issue of asylum seekers, I regard the present resolution as a very low-end compromise.

Well, she did not abstain from that vote. I have actually gone and got the Votes and Proceedings of the House, just to show the hypocrisy on this issue. In fact, on 27 June this year, on the Offshore Processing Bill, fondly known as the Oakeshott bill, the member voted for it three times. I would love to table it, but it is there; you can check it out. Where she was a little bit cute was in relation to the bill that came before this House after the Houston committee's report. It was a bill in continuation, which I had spoken on earlier, amended to reflect the Houston committee's report—the Migration Legislation Amendment (Offshore Processing and Other Measures) Bill. That was on 15 August. We the opposition put in a number of amendments trying to make it workable—because, as the former minister, the member for Berowra, said, it is not going to work unless you put the full suite of measures in. That was rejected.

The member for Fremantle voted against those measures. You can understand that because the Labor Party did not want those measures.

Then there were amendments moved by the member for Melbourne, Mr Bandt, who is in the chamber, along with the member for Denison. They brought in two amendments to this bill. Only the two of them voted, and as Votes and Proceedings put it:

The House divided and only Mr Bandt and Mr Wilkie voting “Aye”, the Deputy Speaker (Ms A. E. Burke) declared the question resolved in the negative.

  …   …   …

The House divided and only Mr Bandt and Mr Wilkie voting “No”, the Deputy Speaker (Ms A. E. Burke) declared the question resolved in the affirmative.

Consideration in detail concluded.

On the motion of Mr Bowen, by leave, the bill was read a third time.

There was no vote. She could not absent herself from the vote if there was no vote. In fact, no name was recorded for yes and no on this bill because it was carried unanimously whether she is in the House or not. This is where we are this whole sad saga. We had a situation that worked, where people were not perishing at sea. We had a situation where the integrity of the Australian migration system was intact and people were able to honour our migration system. In fact, the British were envious of it.

People ask me: 'Why is it going to cost so much to go to Nauru? What happened to all those old buildings on Nauru and Manus Island?' They are overgrown, they have been pilfered, smashed and bashed, and the immigration minister at the time, Senator Evans from Western Australia—his office is down Fremantle way—bragged about it. He said it was his proudest day and he was pleased to see the whole thing traduced. What a dereliction of duty that Australian assets have been allowed to be wrecked like that. That is why it is costing billions of dollars to resurrect the Pacific Solution. The minister of the day was proud to see Australian property wrecked. It was a spiteful act, because the previous government had done it and the incoming Rudd government—who by the way said they would not do anything about it and then did—had decided that they would try to make their marks on the ground. Of course, it is going to cost a billion dollars and more, and yet all the time I have people coming to my office trying to help people come here in a lawful way.

I sponsor two families in Sri Lanka from Menik Farm, a refugee camp, because I think that is the best way to help people. You cannot save the world, but you can save one or two people. One guy has one leg, and the young girl and her mother lost her father in the war. I am trying to help in a small way. They want to come to Australia. I have told them not to bother—because they would not even get on the list—and that I would try to help them in Sri Lanka. Australia appears to be utopia to them—it is the end of the rainbow, the pot of gold—yet we cannot get people like the two I have mentioned in Sri Lanka onto the list, because there are people coming before them.

How will this policy work? We are told that the people who are going to end up on Nauru and Manus Island will not be able to come here before all the people who are waiting come. We know there are thousands of people waiting in detention centres and camps in Africa. In fact, there is a camp that has just been established in Jordan as the result of the Syrian war. I suspect that we may want to look at those people, but we cannot because we have something like 12,000 people this year who have come by boat, have jumped the queue and stopped people who have been waiting in an orderly system, and have already been selected and approved as refugees to come to this country. This is one step in a positive direction and it is going to be difficult to make work because the Labor Party will not go the whole nine yards and do it properly.

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