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

I am pleased to be part of the second reading of this private member's bill to restore temporary protection visas to the suite of measures that are necessary to bring to a halt the historic level of failure on our borders that has characterised, and been experienced under, the governance of the current government. Prior to the 2007 election, the member for Kingsford Smith said to Steve Price, then with 2UE:

… we'll change it all …

He later sought to distance himself from those comments. But, when it comes to border protection, there was no truer statement issued by any member of the now government than that. This government has changed it all when it comes to border protection in this country. It has changed all of it, every last little bit of it.

Those changes started with the abolition of the Pacific solution back on 8 February 2008, described by the then minister for immigration, Senator Evans, as his proudest moment: the abolition of the Pacific solution. They broke their promise to turn back boats, a promise made just days before the election in 2007. Prime Minister Rudd walked away from that commitment. They abolished temporary protection visas, putting permanent residency back on the table for people smugglers to sell. They did that, interestingly, on my birthday, on 13 May 2008. They abolished temporary protection visas. They abolished turning back the boats. They abolished the Pacific solution. They abolished at all. They changed at all.

But they did not stop there. They abolished the single officer review process for decisions made in the process of determining whether someone is a refugee. Now, that is the process adopted by the UNHCR all around the world. Abolishing that process and putting in place a series of subsequent appeals mechanisms have revealed again today, as have previous figures, that if at first they do not succeed, an asylum seeker coming by boat will certainly try and try again, because they have a 75 per cent chance of that 'no' decision being overturned. So noes are routinely turned into yeses if you come by boat.

They restored full access to the courts when they took their decision to effectively abolish any of the legal protections for Australia that existed in having excised offshore places. The notion that this government have moved on excising the entire Australian mainland when it comes to whether people have access to the courts is a complete nonsense, because the government had already moved to give them full access to the courts. So they abolished that as well.

This government also, in effect, abolished mandatory detention. But they did not do it because they thought it was wrong; they did it because the detention centres were full. The detention centres had become so overwhelmed due to the scale of arrivals that has occurred under this government's failed border policies that they just had to let people out. They had run out of options. They had blown the budget. People who were in centres burnt them down and those involved in riots and all sorts of outrageous behaviour got away scot-free—except for maybe one, possibly two, who were actually convicted for their roles in those offensive and outrageous acts that took place, as Australians looked on and watched detention centres burn to the ground.

They abolished mandatory detention and in late 2011 they released people into the community with work rights. I remember warning at the time that this was basically giving those who were seeking to come by boat everything they were looking for—straight off the boat, straight into the community and straight into the opportunity to have work rights, they were getting and continue to get what they paid for.

This was the complete removal of every last brick in the wall that John Howard built up as former Prime Minister of this country to ensure we had strong borders. They have knocked that wall down in its entirety. It is all gone. Lately, they have made attempts to try to rebuild what they destroyed but in the rebuilding, having been dragged kicking and screaming, they have shown neither the conviction nor the competence to put those measures back in place, at least in terms of the Pacific solution.

I briefly mention again this government abolishing mandatory detention. They have now embarked on a system of release into the community that has no safeguards, no guidelines and no protocols to not only protect those who are released into the community but also provide appropriate protections for the community itself. A few weeks ago, I made the point that the government's lack of guidelines and processes around their community release program needed to be addressed—it does need to be addressed and it still needs to be addressed. This government will not address it. Their policy now on community release is 'out of sight, out of mind'. Their policy on community release is 'no care, no responsibility'. So we have seen every last brick in John Howard's wall of border protection knocked down by this government. What has been the result of all this?

We know that former Prime Minister Rudd started the boats and we know that Prime Minister Gillard has been unable to stop them, and she will never be able to, because this Prime Minister and her government lack both the policy and the resolve to address this issue, as has been demonstrated. The result has been chaos, cost and tragedy. The result has been more that more than 30,000 people have arrived illegally by boat, on over 580 boats, ever since this government was elected; over 1,000 people are dead in the water; over $5 billion in budget blow-outs since the last election alone and over $6 billion since they were elected; and 8,100 people who would have otherwise got a permanent protection visa under our refugee and humanitarian program, our offshore program, did not get those visas. They were left out—out of sight, out of mind. No visas for those who are waiting in places around the world in desperate situations that, frankly, none of us could really imagine unless you have physically been to some of those places—and I have seen some of those places firsthand.

In the latest statistics which have been released by the department for the year 2011-12, 10,384 Afghans made applications under our offshore refugee humanitarian program. Of those, 712 received a visa—just seven per cent. Of the 2,058 people from Afghanistan who arrived illegally by boat and had their claims assessed in that same year, 96 per cent of them received permanent visas. So under Labor's policies if you are an Afghan seeking asylum you are 13.7 times more likely to get a permanent visa if you get on a boat rather than apply offshore. Why wouldn't you get on a boat under this government, frankly? If they are the odds—13.7 times more likely—then that is called a people smugglers' product. It is in high demand and will continue to be if it is 13.7 times more likely.

The number of permanent visas given to Afghans who arrived illegally by boat was three times higher than the number given to offshore applicants from Afghanistan. Three times more visas, in absolute numbers, were given to those who came here illegally by boat than to those who had applied offshore. That is despite the fact that there were five times the number of applicants offshore. But they are out of sight, out of mind. This government is favouring those who have come by boat, through their process, their decisions and their abolition of the measures that worked under the Howard government. According to the most recent stats from the Department of Immigration and Citizenship for the 2011-12 year, 40,000 offshore applicants were rejected and did not get visas last year. That is 85 per cent. That is compared to nine per cent of rejections for those who turned up on boats.

Under Labor's policy, people coming on boats are getting what they paid for. There is nothing that will underpin a business model better than that. They are guaranteeing the result through the evidence I have put before you. For those who seek to come on a boat, under this government it makes eminent sense, even at the risk to their own lives. The odds of getting that permanent visa are significant. They are significantly greater than if you apply offshore through the more regular process, as tens of thousands do. It is often put to me: 'But they can't apply offshore.' Over 10,000 Afghans applied offshore in 2011-12. Seven per cent of those got a visa.

This bill is designed to take permanent residence off the table for those who come to Australia illegally by boat. This bill is about putting back in place this key measure—while I hope the government would adopt all the measures, I know that is a forlorn hope—and ensuring that permanent residence is not something that will go on the table.

The measures are twofold. The first of those measures enables those who have come directly and have entered Australia illegally by boat or otherwise to be eligible for only a temporary protection visa, and that temporary protection visa would have attached to it certain rights. Those rights would include things like the ability to work. The difference between a temporary protection visa and a bridging visa is that a temporary protection visa is exactly that—temporary. It is given at the end of the process where someone has been found by the process to be a refugee. A bridging visa is given to someone who has not been found to be a refugee as yet. In fact, no-one who has arrived since 13 August last year and is out there in the community today has had their claim even assessed, let alone determined.

A temporary protection visa would go to those who had completed the process. A temporary protection visa would be given to someone not at the expense of someone who has come through the proper method through an offshore application. The coalition's policy delinks the two programs. Not one permanent protection visa offered under our system will be given to someone who has directly arrived by boat. The government system takes those visas out of the same pool, so everyone who continues to come by boat will continue to take a visa from someone who has applied offshore. That is the government's policy.

Our policy of temporary protection visas does not do that. Our policy separates the two. The other thing our policy does, which is encapsulated in this bill, is that it puts a statutory bar on permanent residence for anyone who has come through a country where they could have made application to have their refugee status assessed—a secondary mover as it is known. So someone who had that opportunity, in Indonesia or Malaysia, for example, if they were found to be a refugee if they arrived in Australia and were in the position of gaining a temporary protection visa, there would be a statutory bar against that person going onto permanent residence and, therefore, obviously citizenship as well.

These are the sorts of measures you need that we had in place last time that were part of the overall package of measures that ensured that the boats stopped coming as they did—it is a fact; they did. It was the result. It was the purpose of those measures, and those measures achieved that purpose. I contrast that to the measures that the government has put in place—measures that abolished it all, changed it all, removed it all—and the consequences have been chaos, cost and tragedy.

The government should today, I think, be as boisterous in talking up their abolition of all these measures as they were in 2007, if they really believe it, if they thought that was the right idea. But if they do that then they need to take responsibility for the results: 33,962 people turning up on 582 boats; more than a thousand people dead in the water; more than 8,000 people denied permanent visas who are waiting offshore and languishing in camps around the world and other places; and more than $5 billion in budget blow-outs as a result of their failures. The government should be accountable for those failures. (Time expired)

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