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

Here we have another bill, following the farce we have just seen here in this place, rushed into this parliament. The difference here is that I understand the urgency when it comes to the Appropriation (Implementation of the Report of the Expert Panel on Asylum Seekers) Bill (No. 1) 2012-2013, which the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship brought into this place yesterday regarding the government's blow-outs on our borders and the budget it needs now to meet those blow-outs. It is because, when it comes to the budget that this government needs to pay for its border failures, it has run out of money. It has run out of money to pay for the blow-outs on our borders, and it has brought in a bill for an additional appropriation of $1.7 billion to pay for the blow-outs that have occurred on our borders and the blow-outs in the budget that have occurred as a result. So I understand the reason why this government wants to rush this bill into the place: because it has run out of money.

As a result, the coalition is not going to be standing in the way of this, because, regardless of how aggrieved we feel about the serious policy failure of this government on our borders—which happens every single day, as more than one boat arrives every single day—these bills are going to have to be paid. Once again, Minister Bowen is putting his hand deep into the pockets of the Australian taxpayers to pay for more of his failures. I found it amazing yesterday that he sought to blame this appropriation bill, in its Orwellesque title, on Angus Houston and the Houston panel. This was extraordinary. Of the $1.7 billion in these appropriation bills, $1.3 billion is because more boats are arriving than this government estimated in their budget back in May.

I have read the Houston report carefully, and I do not remember reading anywhere that Angus Houston said that more boats should come to Australia. But what we have in these bills is more money for more boats coming to Australia. The funding specifically for some of the measures out of the Houston report is a national component of the funds that this government is seeking from this parliament and the Australian taxpayers.

The minister for immigration has stood in this place on other occasions and talked about the national stains of policies put forward by the Howard government to address border issues in this country. I notice that the minister has now backflipped on this in the most spectacular act of hypocrisy, on his own words, today, but the national stain that is occurring here is the following: it is 28,000-plus people turning up on over 480 boats in the last four years; it is over 1,000 people dead, and over 8,000 people being denied a protection visa because they applied offshore and they did not come on a boat under this government's soft policies. It is the riots that occurred in our detention centres—the riots where only one person was denied a protection visa out of the hundreds who burned the place to the ground. One person was denied a visa despite the tough talk of the minister for immigration, saying he was going to apply the character test. He gave permanent protection visas to three people convicted of offences relating to their involvement in those riots. What a joke. This is the national stain—it is the national stain of a decision taken by this Labor government to abolish the measures that worked under the Howard government. That is the national stain that touches every single member on that side of the House. They will have to be accountable for that when they go to the people at the next election. They must account for the stain that they have put on this nation through their weakness and the ease by which they have been taken down a path that would see measures that worked removed, and the result of that national stain is one of cost, chaos and a tragedy on this government's watch. That is what has occurred under this government; that is what they must be accountable for.

This legislation in particular involves border protection budget blow-outs. This is the mother of all budget blow-outs. This year, with these new appropriations, it will cost almost $2.7 billion to run the various programs that are a consequence of boats coming to Australia. That is more than a 2,000 per cent increase on what this government budgeted back in 2009-10; more than $2.5 billion extra per year is now being spent by the Australian taxpayer because this government cannot manage our borders. The rolling blow-out between what they said it would cost and what it was expected to cost before MYEFO was $4.97 billion. That figure is now $5.4 billion up to this financial year, and out over the forward estimates it is $6.6 billion. Just think about those numbers: $6.6 billion in blow-outs because this government decided to get rid of a policy that was working.

The current budget estimate of an extra $1.3 billion is directly related to the increased number of people that the government is now expecting to come by boat this year. The government said in its budget that it would have 450 people arriving, on average, per month in 2012-13. That figure has already been blown by over 6,000 people to date, and we now have on average more than 2,000 people turning up every single month. If the government wants to know where its surplus has gone when the surplus disappears, it will find that it sailed away on a boat.

That is where it went. If they want to go looking for this surplus, they will find it in the detention centres around the country. They have sent the surplus to Nauru and they have sent it there on the backs of the hundreds who will go there, because thousands keep turning up in this country because of this government's failed border protection policies. That is where they will find it. The surplus has been processed offshore. The surplus is disappearing before this government's eyes as it sails away.

The 30-month average is what the government uses to estimate the number of arrivals that are expected to turn up in any given year for the purposes of establishing their budget. That has been confirmed on numerous occasions in Senate estimates by department officials and was most recently confirmed back in February of this year. That is where the figure of 450 arrivals per month came from.

The question I sought to ask the Prime Minister yesterday in this House was: given you have just increased the budget by over $1 billion because of your blow-outs on boats, what are you now basing this figure on? She is going to stand in this place and say to the Australian people that she is going to deliver a surplus. The Prime Minister refused to answer the question. I will go to the department's own policies. I asked the Prime Minister to come into this place and correct me if I had this wrong, or the minister for immigration, if he wants, can come and correct me. But based on their own department's policies, stated before the Senate, it is the 30-month average. Is the 30-month average the 2,075 people who have been arriving this year per month? No. I assume the $1.3 billion extra they are asking this parliament for in this bill is based on a monthly estimate of 713 people. That is almost two-thirds less than have been turning up in this country every single month this financial year.

If that is indeed the estimate, which based on the testimony of department officials one can reasonably assume, unless the government has changed its policy—and if so they should come into this place and say so—then this surplus is totally gone. At that rate of arrivals, this budget will be blown on boats alone. With over 2,000 arrivals occurring, that is what we can expect for the rest of the year, because the problem is getting worse. It is not getting better. The reason it is getting worse is that this government remain in office. They are the problem on our borders and the only way it can be fixed is the removal of this government from the treasury bench.

I also note that the government has put in these bills the capital appropriation for the establishment of the processing centres on Nauru and Manus Island. The figure for 2,100 beds is $268 million. That is an average of $126,000 per bed. That is a lot of money and it is more than the average cost at, say, Curtin or in other places. It cost just over $100,000 per bed to establish those facilities.

But what I find interesting is that in January of this year the minister who is now at the table, Minister Bowen, told us that to develop a facility on Nauru was going to cost us $422,000 per bed. That was his cost back in January, when he said he was not going to reopen the centre on Nauru because it would cost far too much. It was going to cost $422,000 per bed to develop these facilities. The cost he has put in this bill in this place today is $126,000. What that says to me is that this government will trash and demonise the coalition's measures right up until the day that it implements them.

The minister at the table likes to talk about national stains. Well, this is quite a stain. It is a stain on his record and a stain on his credibility. It is a stain because in January, when he did not want to do it, he said it was going to cost $422,000 a bed; today, when he wants to do it, he says it will cost $126,000 a bed.

So the minister, given he is the biggest spending immigration minister in our history, particularly on border blow-outs, is in no position to lecture anybody on anything to do with these costings matters. This minister's hands are so deep in the pockets of the taxpayers of this country that he can almost tie their shoelaces through their pants. That is how deep he is in the pockets of the people of this country who are paying taxes.

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