Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Hansard source

I rise again on this occasion to address the remarks of the member for Melbourne and the member for Denison on the amendment moved by the member for Melbourne. There are no decisions made in this debate and in relation to policies that address these issues that are free of moral burden. I know that the member for Melbourne has sincerely raised his concerns in relation to these policies, as, I have to say, the member for Melbourne and his colleagues in the Greens have been quite consistent about doing. I may not agree with the member for Melbourne, and I certainly do not agree with the policies of the Greens, but I will give them this much credit: they have been very consistent in their position on these issues. And I think it is important to be consistent in what you believe on these issues. These policies should be matters of conviction.

I can certainly say that, from the coalition's point of view, our convictions on these issues are very strong. We feel very passionately about the need to have strong border protection. I note the member for Denison's comments that this is not a border protection issue. I sincerely disagree; I think it is very much a border protection issue. There has always been humanitarian need in relation to these matters.

The sad fact about the refugee issue internationally is that the demand is ubiquitous. There is always lots of demand, and enough demand for the smugglers to exploit at any point in time. So, while you may have many people coming at certain points in time and fewer at others, it is not because at the latter times there are fewer people who want to seek asylum; it is because countries such as Australia have stronger or weaker policies at particular points in time. It has certainly been the case over the last 4½ years that we have had weaker policies. As a result of having those weaker policies, some catastrophic things have occurred.

I would remind the member for Melbourne and the member for Denison—because the coalition will not be supporting the amendment that has been put forward by the member for Melbourne—that Nauru is not a detention centre. Nauru is not a place of detention. People that are sent to Nauru—as the minister's own statement says very clearly today, and as was the case under the coalition—get visas on Nauru. It is an open centre where people can move freely about the island and have a visa to do so. In that respect, it is not unlike the bridging visa policy that the member for Melbourne convinced the government to adopt in November last year. As a result, the comparison between those two issues is relevant. Having the sort of policy we have on Nauru is one thing, and that can be part of a set of deterrence measures that can be effective, as they were under the Howard government. But, as the coalition has said on many occasions, we are very concerned that the government made the decision to have bridging visas in Australia not out of a sense of compassion but because the detention network had collapsed under the strain of their failures. More broadly, those being available at the other end of a boat trip if people are successful in arriving in Australia only adds to the incentive to make that trip. I make this point deliberately: Nauru is not a detention centre but a place of processing where people receive visas and can move freely around the island, as the minister has made very clear.

I think the member for Melbourne raises a very valid question to the government, and the government have been very sheepish in avoiding the answer to this question. I raised it in my earlier remarks. I can tell the member for Melbourne the answer to his question, 'How long will people stay in Nauru?' If the government are true to their word and there is a no-advantage principle applying, as the government have said, then the average time waiting for people in Malaysia, for example—I am talking about Burmese refugees waiting—is five years. So the answer to the member for Melbourne is five years. I think the government should be very clear that that is the implication of the policies that they are enacting through their motion today.

The other point made particularly by the member for Melbourne but also by the member for Denison is that the approach of deterrence does not work. That is fantasy-land stuff. In those six years in which the policies of uncompromising deterrence were in place, there were 16 boats with 272 people. I cannot begin to contemplate how many people did not get on boats over those six years when I think of the fact that 24½ thousand have turned up in the last 4½ years. If the same soft policies had been running at that time as those which have been running over the last 4½ years, then we could assume 30,000 or 35,000 people might have tried their arm over that period. How many people would have died over that period if we took the view that deterrence did not work? Since the decision was taken in late November on the bridging visa policy, which the Greens convinced the government to introduce, compared to the period of time equal to that—which is around eight months leading up to that decision—and the government moved to even softer policies, as advocated by the Greens, there has been a 320 per cent increase in the number of people coming to Australia on illegal boats. In the eight-month period prior to that decision, we had 2,647 people turn up. That is 2,647 too many.

But after the decision to move to bridging visas and a policy that says 'deterrence does not work' we have now had 11,085 people on 162 boats. Not included in that are the tragedies at sea, which this House has lamented.

I respectfully disagree with the member for Melbourne and the member for Denison when they talk about these policies of deterrence not being the right approach and about needing an alternative model. I note that they both put a lot of faith in the idea of having a regional processing hub and a higher refugee and humanitarian intake. When there is a genuine regional crisis of people directly filling a conflict zone within your own region—which occurred during the Indo-Chinese refugee crisis of the late 1970s and early 1980s—the member for Melbourne talked about returning to the policies of Malcolm Fraser.

That was the right decision for the Prime Minister to take at that time. There was a genuine refugee crisis in our region and it required the temporary response of increasing our intake. It was not the Prime Minister's policy at that time to permanently increase our intake to 20,000. It was raised to 20,000 for only two years and after that it was brought back to a more modest level. It was dealing with a genuine refugee crisis within our region. That is not what we are facing today. We are facing the challenge of secondary movement from a part of the world far removed from this country. We are dealing with a people-smuggling network that is completely different from the problems and issues that were being addressed when the comprehensive plan of action—and the regional measures around that—was put in place.

When the government proposed a processing centre in East Timor as part of a regional processing framework, it did not receive support from other members of the region. One reason for this is they, particularly Indonesia and Malaysia, know that setting up a processing centre in East Timor—as was then proposed by our Prime Minister—does nothing more than create an asylum magnet for the region. That is why they would not support it and that is why I do not think it represents good policy, still to this day. That is why my original motion of amendment to the minister's motion called on having the Bali process return to issues of border security and deterrence policies. That is what our partners in the region are focused on and that is what they are actually working on.

The suggestion that there is some sort of broader regional framework operating here is only in the minds of the government and the UNHCR. Our partners in the region are not working on those issues. They are working on issues of document fraud technology. They are working on issues of biometrics. They are working on issues of intelligence sharing. They are working on issues of interception, interdiction, arrest and prosecution. That is what they are working on. The new regional office, out of the Bali process, is working on the issue of returns. They are the policies that the region is wanting to focus on. On the issue of increasing the intake, we have the very real problem of deluding ourselves that creating an extra 6,250 places is somehow going to convince two million people living in Pakistan and Iran to, all of a sudden, put this off.

I would agree with the member for Denison and the member for Melbourne that there are other arguments for increasing the refugee intake. I do not share them, but I think there are other arguments that can be made. The idea that increasing the intake will deter millions of people, including those who are active candidates for people smugglers, who number in the tens if not hundreds of thousands, means we are kidding ourselves. This is why we will not be supporting the amendment put forward by the Greens.

Deterrence policies are necessary. I accept that the policies we have advocated carry a heavy moral burden. Similarly, I would urge other members of the House to understand the moral burden that they too must carry—along with all of those outside of this place who have advocated the soft policies we have had for the last 4½ years. The consequence of that is there are over 700 people dead, that we know of. The minister's own statement says this. Thousands of people have been denied protection visas and thousands of people have taken this risky voyage to Australia. There is the cost as well, which the minister puts at $5 billion. That is the moral burden of the non-deterrence policy and I think those who advocate those policies have to sign up to them.

I conclude as I started. There will be no decision, in this space, that is free of moral burden. The minister does not have that luxury. Nor do I. Nor does any other member in this place who thinks they can propose things in this space and not have consequences. Every single one of those decisions has a consequence. No member can walk into this place and somehow parade some higher virtue in the process. No member in this place wants to see people dying on boats. I would hope all members want to see integrity in our immigration program and I would hope all members in this place believe we should have secure borders. I am happy to concede that, for everyone who participates in this debate, and do not offer lectures on people's motives. But the decisions we make will have consequences.

If this motion is approved today in the original form as moved by the minister, and with the amendment I proposed—which would go further than the government is suggesting—we will have the return of strong deterrence policies that can be effective. To agree to what the member for Melbourne is proposing would only take us further back into the morass of policy we have had over the last 4½ years. It is true. The Greens and others convinced the government back in 2007 to abolish the Howard government policies and, as the member for Denison said, they won an election—and off they went and did it. I remember the member for Griffith saying, when he was recently asked why he made that decision, that the voters made him do it. He said he had made a promise to them. He made himself do it. He made the promise and he followed it through. That has been taken to a whole new level by those who followed him. The consequences of that decision are there for everybody to see.

It is time to start making some new decisions on this. The motion put forward by the minister takes one small step towards that approach. We think there should be more. I do not think the amendment that has been put forward by the Greens removing the amendment put forward by the coalition on this is the approach we should be taking. As a result, the coalition will not be supporting the Greens in that process.

I would respectfully say to the member for Melbourne that I understand the sincerity which he brings to these matters, and I respect the consistency of the Greens' position. They are right to point out the hypocrisy of the Labor Party on this issue—absolutely right to point it out—because they have been hypocrites on this issue. But the position that they press is certainly not one the coalition could agree with and is one that the coalition has steadfastly stood against for more than a decade. Where the government has stood on this issue from one day to the next is anybody's guess. They are simply making it up as they go along.

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