House debates

Wednesday, 9 November 2016

Bills

Migration Legislation Amendment (Regional Processing Cohort) Bill 2016; Second Reading

5:21 pm

Photo of Ted O'BrienTed O'Brien (Fairfax, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am delighted to be speaking on the Migration Legislation Amendment (Regional Processing Cohort) Bill 2016 after the member for Shortland, who gave us all a very good, highly moral argument. I find it extraordinary. I am going to give him the benefit of the doubt. Instead of him playing politics, I am going to give him the benefit of the doubt and pay him a compliment by saying he might just be suffering from an eternal lack of idea. He has a vague notion of compassion, which is completely devoid of any practicality, and, therefore, undermines not only the best interests of our country but also the best interests of those people who are most vulnerable. As he leaves the chamber today, I hope he is going straight back to his suite to take some notes on what really is an argument in support of a very worthy amendment to the legislation.

The starting point, to my mind, is the global context. Indeed, here we are on the very day of the US presidential election, and I suspect there might be more people glued to the TV looking at the Trump versus Clinton battle than at this chamber. Nevertheless everybody around the world is watching, because the world today is as globalised and integrated as it ever has been. We are indeed living in a world of heightened volatility and uncertainty right across the global political landscape. We know that politically, we know that economically and, sadly, we know that militarily. We have at least 10 major wars taking place in the world today. If you look at Syria alone, there are over 1,000 deaths on average every single week in Syria. These conflicts create such hurt—not just death but displacement. That is why we have 65 million displaced people around the world, 21 million of whom are refugees according to the UNHCR, and 10 million are stateless. This is the largest number probably since World War II. Australia has to be proud of its record in this regard. Australia is one of the few countries that have a very planned, successful resettlement program. The starting point for this debate, therefore, should be one of enormous pride in our achievements.

The principle has to be compassion, but there is a link here. This is where I think the Labor Party are again either playing politics or missing the point. There is a link between compassion and how we control our borders. The link is simply this: the stronger our borders, the more compassionate we can be as a country. We know in our liberal democracy that the Australian people have strong views on this matter and that the stronger our borders, the more compassionate we can be and the more humanitarian refugees we can allow into our country. That is a proven correlation. One is a prerequisite for the other. Strong borders equal more compassion and more immigration.

Historically, we know the problem with the Labor Party. Their Achilles heel has again been snapped with this amendment bill being put up. The Labor Party have no high moral ground on this issue. The Labor Party are the party that governed over 1,200 people dying at sea. There is no moral argument in favour of people dying at sea; 1,200 people who do not have a voice, because they tragically died at sea on leaky boats trying to get to Australia. On 800 boats, 50,000 people attempted to get here and 17 detention centres had to be opened up, and the Labor Party are prepared to again welcome such tragedy.

This is no longer an academic argument. This has been a proven piece of policy. The Labor Party inherited from the Howard government a successful migration program, and that tragedy I just outlined is what happened with Kevin Rudd undoing those policies. What have we seen since? It was only after the coalition's election victory in 2013 that we have seen that mess fixed up, that we have seen the detention centres closed and that we have seen the number of children in detention centres—8,000 children at the peak under Labor—down to zero. We saw that under a coalition government. Over 830 days have gone by now without a boat—

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