Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have received a letter from the honourable member for Cook proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:

The Government’s failure to implement proven policies to protect our borders.

I call upon those members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

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

The government's failure to implement proven policies to protect our borders is demonstrated no less by the fact that, since they abolished the proven and effective deterrent in the Howard government's border protection regime 3½ years ago, 251 boats, carrying 12,942 people, have arrived in Australia. There have been almost 100 boats and more than 5,500 people since the last election. This year more than 3,000 people have arrived on almost 50 boats. That is just over one per week. To put that in some perspective, between 1 January this year and the government's announcement on 7 May of the Malaysian solution, which has now failed, we had 20 boats in 18 weeks; in the period between the announcement of the now failed Malaysian people swap and when that policy was struck down by the High Court we had 17 boats in 16 weeks; and since the High Court decision we have had 11 boats in nine weeks. The people smugglers' business model that was reborn by this government has been constant throughout 2011, regardless of the claims and commentary provided by those opposite.

As we approach the monsoon season again, the pattern we have seen in previous years under this government suggests that there could be more. I sincerely hope—and I am sure the minister would agree with me on this—that the events of the last 24 hours are a warning to those who might be seeking to get onto those boats, as smugglers seek to rush people onto boats before the monsoon season, not to do so. I hope this will be the one thing that will come out of the events of the last 24 hours. Hopefully there will be more, but that is one that I am certainly hopeful of.

A consequence of the government's failed policies and failure to implement proven policies in this area is, as I referred to earlier in my remarks when the suspension of standing orders motion was before the House, to undermine the integrity of the humanitarian and refugee program that we operate. In the last six years of the Howard government 498 permanent protection visas were given to people who had arrived in Australia illegally by boat. In the last three years 5,075 visas have been given to those who have arrived illegally by boat. That is a twentyfold increase over the last three years because of this government's failure to implement and maintain proven policies.

There were 54,000 offshore applications last year from people seeking to access our protection through the established method. For those 54,000 people in that queue at the very least there were just 8,900 grants provided. The percentage of offshore grants has fallen from 85 per cent to just 65 per cent of the entire program under this government. As I have remarked before, IMAs, or those who have arrived illegally in Australia by boat, accounted for less than one per cent of protection visa grants under the coalition and now account for one in five, more than 20 per cent, under this government.

There are now more than 2,000 fewer visas going to offshore applicants because of this government's failure to deliver proven policies in this area and their decision to abolish the proven policies they inherited from the Howard government. In 2010-11 there were 17,236 applications through our processing centre in Cairo. Of those, just 350 were granted visas. Of the 7,730 Afghans who sought our protection offshore last year, 1,027, or just 13 per cent, received visas going through that proper process. Of the 2,550 applications determined for those of Afghan nationality who arrived illegally in Australia by boat more than half were granted. When you have a disparity in the outcomes for people of similar nationalities of that order—around one in 10 versus one in two—then there is no doubt that under this government's policies something is awry.

As I mentioned earlier, the government are terribly desperate and divided on these issues. We have seen that on display, sadly, in the last 24 hours but we saw it further in the meeting of cabinet that was leaked to the press, not by one it would seem but by many. The cabinet have split. The government have split. As a result, this government are unable to implement proven policies that can assist address the mess that they have created on their own watch. No wonder everything they have done since they abolished the proven solutions of the Howard government, and the deterrent that it provided, has failed and come to nothing—the Oceanic Viking, the asylum freeze, East Timor, PNG and now of course Malaysia.

The only solution not embraced by those opposite is the one that they abolished and they refuse to restore. This is the only set of policies—it is not just one, as we have often said—that are proven to have actually worked. There are many who like to offer commentary on these policies. There are opinions aplenty but, when it comes to which policies have a record of success, there is only one set of measures—the measures put in place by the Howard government and initially under the member for Berowra, who was then our minister for immigration and still remains our longest-serving member. The Malaysian proposal has already failed and is an unconscionable arrangement that has resulted in over 1,000 people turning up since it was signed and more than 1,600 people turning up since it was announced. Since this arrangement was first announced in May for the 800 people who would go to Malaysia, more than double the quota has actually turned up. This proposal is flawed in many respects. It is flawed, firstly, because it has a sunset clause, by the government's own admission through the department, of just eight to 10 boats. This government had a policy for eight 10 boats, by its own admission.

The policy the Howard government had in place was a policy for every single boat that would seek to arrive. There was no reset; there was no way of getting around it; this policy would apply for as long as was needed to ensure the boats stopped—and they did indeed stop. This government came up with a policy which said, 'If you can send eight or 10, we're going to let you carry on with your business.' That was a deep flaw in this policy model which the government and departmental officials have been unable to explain, and it remains one of the core reasons for the policy's failure. The exemptions that would be inevitable under this policy would become a rule. As much as the minister and the government would like to say that exemptions would be assessed on a case-by-case basis, it will only take one, and the minister knows it. As a result, the failure to implement what is the third key flaw in this arrangement, the absence of suitable protections, means those exemptions would happen, the cracks would emerge, the eight to 10 boats would soon arrive and the government would be back where it started from, which is in one terrible mess.

This policy has been rejected by the parliament and by the High Court. The government now refuse to allow this bill to be taken into this parliament and voted on to test the confidence of this House in the government's policies. The coalition has proposed one amendment—just one—that maintains protections and restores offshore processing in 148 countries. This amendment was actually government policy at the last election. The great ask we are making of the government is that they agree with themselves by supporting our amendment. It was only a year ago when the Prime Minister said that they would only process people offshore in countries that have signed the refugee convention. It does not strike me, then, as an unreasonable request by those on this side of the House to ensure that protections remain in the Migration Act—protections the government are seeking to abolish in their proposed changes to the act; protections that were introduced into the act under the coalition by the member for Berowra.

Our amendment seeks to maintain those protections through one simple measure, which the government stubbornly refuse to adopt. Rather than have that matter accepted and the bill passed in this parliament, rather than return to the proven measures that they abolished, they have not only decided to continue their current policy of onshore processing; they have processed nobody offshore. We have had onshore processing ever since they abolished offshore processing. They would seek to further soften the policies by adopting those of the Greens, refusing, out of stubborn pride, to accept the coalition's amendment and return to policies that are proven and work, and, indeed, even pick up some of their own policies. Our amendment would enable the government to establish offshore processing again at Manus Island, which is their policy, yet they stubbornly refuse our amendment, as they have done consistently. Therefore, refusing to look at a simple, straightforward, modest amendment, the government deny themselves the opportunity to restore policies that are proven and work.

Those on this side of the House have not only advocated offshore processing, as those opposite and those around the country know; we have also put forward, as we practised in government, other measures. Those measures are well known. They include seeking to turn boats back where it is safe to do so. Our policy is fairly straightforward. As a boat comes to Australia, if we are able to turn it back we will—if it is safe to do so. Secondly, if that boat is unable to be turned back, if it is safe to do so it will be processed offshore. In offshore processing, if someone is found to be a refugee, we have temporary protection visas. That is our policy. It is a straightforward plan for any and every single boat that may seek to come to Australia under our regime.

The government's response to this is that they believe that, where it is safe to turn a boat back, they will not do that. Their policy is not to turn boats back where it is safe to do so—where the circumstances permit. The government have decided that that is not possible. That is for the government to decide, but we heard in evidence from Admiral Griggs that, on at least one occasion that he was directly involved with, it was done. That was his evidence. On another occasion—

Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What else did he say?

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

I will finish. On another occasion he said it was not possible.

Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What else did he say?

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

That is all he said, as you know.

Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Oh, that's all he said?

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

That is all he said. His evidence was straightforward. In some cases you can do it and in some cases you cannot, and we have never said anything different to that. What we have said is that, where it is safe, you can turn them around—and it has been done.

This government refuses to do this, but I am not surprised. This government will not turn a boat back when this minister at the table cannot even get detained protesters off a roof. That sent a big, strong message to Indonesia, I am sure. Protesters can run around not only on the roof of a detention centre but also on the roof of his own office. On those occasions, thank goodness for Andrew Scipione and the New South Wales Police, because they were prepared to act in that incident, but in the other incident the protesters sat up on the roof for goodness knows how long. The minister's department put in a word after the protesters got on the roof. They put in a phone call to the New South Wales Police and asked them if they could get them down from the roof at Villawood. As the minister knows, the delay by the department and others putting proper arrangements in place at Villawood for the New South Wales Police prevented that from happening. That is our policy and that was the evidence and testimony of the minister's own department at the detention inquiry.

Temporary protection visas, equally, provide the opportunity to ensure that there is no guarantee of permanent residency in this country, and the measures that we have announced as a coalition in opposition go further to ensure that that is the message would be presented. We have also outlined many other measures, which we have spoken clearly about in the lead-up to the last election and since, that we practised in government, particularly in the area of regional cooperation. We believe that the Bali process that we started should focus on stronger border protection in our region. It should focus on enforcement. It should focus on intelligence. It should focus on border control.

I applaud the Malaysian government for the measures they introduced for biometric identification at all ports of entry. That is something that should be paralleled right throughout the region. It is a measure I support and it is a measure I commend where the government has supported it. When I was in Malaysia I asked that the government also seek to have access to that information to help us with identification processes, and I look forward to the minister reporting on that when he has the opportunity to learn the answer to that question.

At the end of the day, this government abolished the policies that worked, refuses to restore the policies that worked and remains locked in a prison of failure when it comes to its stubborn obstinacy to implement proven policies on border protection. (Time expired)

Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Let me say at the outset something which needs to be said very clearly in this House: last night—

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You resign!

Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was about to say that last night this nation saw a tragedy of the first order. The Australian people woke this morning to see that tragedy and wonder why the Australian parliament—which apparently believes in offshore processing; which apparently believes that offshore processing is a deterrent to getting on a boat and coming to Australia—cannot vote for it. Why wouldn't the parliament vote for something that both sides of the parliament say they believe in? Why wouldn't the parliament join as one and say, 'We disagree over many things. We disagree over methods, we disagree over different resolutions, but we do agree on offshore processing because we believe it can save lives'? Both sides of the aisle in this House—in fairness, not every member; there are members of the crossbench who do not agree—say that we should have an offshore processing regime in Australia. We have a different approach to the methods that can be used, but there is only one side of the House which is prepared to vote for offshore processing. There is only one side of the House which is prepared to come into the chamber and vote to give the government of the day the power to implement offshore processing in a way it sees fit.

The honourable member for Cook has gone through the opposition's model. It is true that we do have a different approach. The opposition say that their approach—and it is—is to open a detention centre at Nauru. We disagree because all the expert advice to the government is that that would not form an effective deterrent. That is advice that has been given to the opposition. Further, that is the advice which has been given to the parliament before the Senate estimates. The Secretary of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship said:

Our view is not simply that the Nauru option would not work but that the combination of circumstances that existed at the end of 2001 could not be repeated with success. That is a view that we held for some time—and it is of course not just a view of my department; it is the collective view of agencies involved in providing advice in this area.

That is the collective view of national security experts—the advisers to government—which has been given to this government and made available to the Leader of the Opposition, to the member for Cook, to the member for Stirling, to Senator Brandis and to other opposition members. They have been given the advice that it would not form an effective deterrent and could not work again, and I think they know that.

I know that the member for Berowra knows that. The member for Berowra, a former holder of the office of minister for immigration, in relation to the policies that he had implemented and in relation to their relevance, today said, 'You're going to have to use all the measures that were used, but then you'd be looking around to see what more you could do. It's going to require a lot more effort than any of the measures that are being spoken about at the moment.' I wonder what they are. We have not heard those. The member for Berowra has conceded that his policies, if implemented again, would not work and they would need to do more, but the member for Cook has not said what that would be, in terms of additional policies, and perhaps he would make announcements. But the member for Cook says that Nauru remains their policy, and I accept that. They say that it would be more effective.

The member for Cook just criticised the Malaysia arrangement, which I will come to in a moment. He said, 'Look, 1,000 people have arrived since it was signed. Sixteen hundred people have arrived since it was announced. Therefore it is a failure.' Let's put aside the fact that it has not been implemented—the parliament has not allowed it to be implemented—but, if the measure of success is the number of arrivals, what does the member for Cook say to the 1,900 people who arrived after the announcement of the detention centre at Nauru? Apparently that failed.

Mr Morrison interjecting—

The member for Cook says it was open-ended. There were only 1,400 places at the Nauru detention centre. The member for Cook has yet to reveal what he would do if he were the minister for immigration when it was full and what he would do in terms of resettlement. Would he have an agreement with other countries to resettle refugees? I would be interested to know. Which countries is he going to ring up on the phone? He is fond of telling us to pick up the phone. Who is he going to ring and ask, 'Could you take the refugees who are on Nauru, because I don't want to take them?' Maybe Iran. He is a big fan of a people-swap deal with Iran. Maybe he would ring Iran. The fact that most of them would be Iranian might be a slight technical difficulty that I am sure he would overcome. Who else is he going to call? Perhaps he could let us know. Where are the refugees on Nauru going to be resettled? If he cannot answer that question, the Australian people are entitled to conclude that the answer is the same as last time, and that answer is Australia and New Zealand.

Mr Ian Macfarlane interjecting—

The member for Groom says that is rubbish. Ninety-five per cent of refugees who were processed on Nauru were resettled in Australia and New Zealand, and the member for Groom says that is rubbish. I would be interested to know what the member for Groom says the figure is of refugees who were resettled. So, there we have the Nauru policy.

The member for Cook again correctly outlined the second limb of his policy, which is temporary protection visas. Temporary protection visas are not something that this side of the parliament supports. We will continue to argue against them and we will not implement them for several reasons. Firstly, we do not believe they were in any way a humanitarian response. Secondly, one of the elements of temporary protection visas is that they deny family reunion. I can understand the reasons that motivated the previous government to do that—I really do understand the policy rationale of saying: 'Let's take away family reunion; that might discourage people from coming to Australia'—but it has been tried, and it failed. When you remove family reunion it does not discourage people from coming to Australia by boat; it encourages them. When family reunion is not available it means more people get on a boat. It means more people risking their lives on the boat journey to Australia because it is the only way of coming to Australia. More women and children on boats is a direct result of temporary protection visas. Eight thousand people arrived after temporary protection visas were introduced, and the number of people arriving went up—

Mr Ruddock interjecting—

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The honourable member for Berowra will control himself. The minister has the call.

Philip Ruddock (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I hope my point has been heard, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The father of the House is aware that it is disorderly to interject—and maybe he has interjected a little too much. The minister has the call.

Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In this matter, as in so many others, the opposition simply ignores the facts. And then we have turning back the boats. This, to my mind, is the worst policy of all—the most ill-thought-out, the most ridiculous and, frankly, the most dangerous policy that the opposition has. There are a number of elements about this policy. Firstly, it underlines the abject hypocrisy of those who sit opposite. The opposition say: 'It's a terrible thing to negotiate protections with Malaysia and it's a terrible thing to ensure that those standards are protected and to then return people by aeroplane to Malaysia, because Malaysia is not a signatory to the refugee convention, but it is okay to turn a boat around and send it to Indonesia, which is not a signatory to the refugee convention, with no protections negotiated. And, by the way, we're not going to check who is on the boat. We're not going to check whether there are women and children and where they're from. We're not even going to check where they're fleeing from and who they're claiming asylum from. We're not going to check and see if that means we are fulfilling our obligations under the refugee convention.' Nothing! That, more than anything else, underlines the abject hypocrisy of the opposition and how ill thought out their policy is.

Secondly, their policy is completely unworkable because, once again, there is a little technical detail—these technical details do crop up, to the annoyance of the shadow minister and the Leader of the Opposition—and that is that Indonesia will not take them. The Indonesian government has made that crystal clear. This is not in relation to our policy, because we are not proposing that. The opposition say: 'That's okay. I'd go up and see them; I'd negotiate it.' The opposition really rate their ability to negotiate with countries in our region. But the Indonesian Minister for Foreign Affairs has made it clear—not in relation to this side of the House but in relation to your policy—that he would not accept it and that it would not be acceptable to the government or the people of Indonesia.

Thirdly, and most importantly, this policy is dangerous. This is a policy which would risk the lives of Australian naval personnel, as well as asylum seekers. The member for Cook says, 'We'd do it when it was safe.' I have news for the member for Cook: it is never safe; it will never be safe. The member for Cook says: 'Admiral Griggs gave evidence to Senate estimates that it had been done. That was the entirety of his advice: "It was done once." That was the complete advice that Admiral Griggs gave to Senate estimates.' Well, the member for Cook is wrong; he is misinformed. Perhaps the member for Cook missed Admiral Griggs's evidence, because Admiral Griggs made it very clear that he had been involved in turning around the boats and that it was a dangerous activity that put at risk the lives of Australian naval personnel and the asylum seekers themselves.

I say this is serious because there are people's lives at stake; these are the lives of our naval personnel. The response of the member for Cook to the advice of Australia's most senior sailor, the Chief of the Australian Navy, is to come up with a fatuous one-liner about people on the roofs of detention centres. He would ignore the advice of the Australian Navy, and he justifies that with a fatuous and cheap one-liner. That is what this opposition has been reduced to. We have people's lives at stake, and we had consistent advice to this government that turning around boats on the high seas is a dangerous policy which would risk the lives of Australia naval personnel, and all the member for Cook can do is come up with a one-liner.

We do not know who would actually make the decision. The opposition say, 'When it's safe to do so.' The opposition's election policy was that Mr Abbott, if he were elected to the office of Prime Minister, would make that decision himself on the 'boat phone' from Kirribilli House. And then recently the Leader of the Opposition said it would actually be the naval personnel who would make the decision. And then the member for Cook said, 'We'll take responsibility,' which I assume means that he would make the decision. So we are not really sure who would make the decision as to when it was safe.

This is a sham. But the opposition's policy is well known and clear, and I accept that. We do believe that they should have the right to implement it. We do believe that, if they were to form office, they should have the right to implement their policy. That is why we introduced legislation into the House to give the government of the day the power to implement its policies.

Mr Morrison interjecting—

The member for Cook says, 'We only moved one amendment, one teensy little amendment, one tiny amendment'—one amendment which would derail the government's policy!

Opposition members interjecting—

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Honourable members on my left, including the member for Cook and the member for Stirling, will remain silent for the rest of the duration of the minister's speech. The minister has the call.

Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The opposition's point is to say: 'You can have any kind of processing you want, providing it is our policy. You can have any type of offshore processing you want, providing that it is on Nauru.' That is not acceptable to the government. The reason it is not acceptable is that, after taking all the expert advice, we have reached the conclusion that there is a much more effective deterrent—the deterrent of the arrangement with Malaysia. I note the current member for Cook says it would not be a deterrent. The previous member for Cook does not quite agree. The previous member for Cook said today, 'There's no denying the fact that the Malaysian solution'—even though I do not think that is the optimum one, in fairness to the previous member for Cook—'was the one the people smugglers were concerned about. And now there is certainly the ability to send boats down to Australia without the concern that the individual asylum seekers are going to be returned to Malaysia.'

The Malaysia arrangement has never been given the chance to be implemented, but it is a policy which would provide the deterrent for people making the dangerous journey by boat to Australia because they feel it provides them with the greatest chance of resettlement in Australia, a point made very eloquently by Prime Minister Najib during his recent visit to Australia. Prime Minister Najib also rejected the outrageous attacks on Malaysia's reputation and policy by those who sit opposite.

We have a chance to ensure that we never see the type of incident we saw last night, that I as minister—or the member for Cook if he were minister—never has to get the type of phone call that I received last night. This parliament should take that opportunity. (Time expired)

Philip Ruddock (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr deputy President, I seek to make a personal explanation.

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Does the member claim to have been misrepresented?

Philip Ruddock (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, I do. I claim to have been grievously misrepresented by the minister. The minister suggested that I do not support the three-pronged approach of the opposition to dealing with the people-smuggling dilemma. I have supported all of the measures that the opposition has proposed and I do ask that you take a much more determined effort to get rejected asylum seekers out of Australia because the figures I have seen suggest that you have failed—

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Berowra will resume his seat. I do not think it is appropriate to ask that the occupant of the chair take any particular course of action as suggested by the member for Berowra.

Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Justice, Customs and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The intervention of the member for Berowra in this matter of public importance reminds us in this House that Australia once had a government that was able to pursue a border protection policy for more than five minutes that worked and showed some resolve to break down the people smugglers' business model. That is opposed to the Labor government whose defining feature on border protection and so many other things is sheer incompetence. At every turn they have been exposed as out of their depth, unable to provide any vision for the nation and just incapable of responding in any coherent fashion to events that occur in our country. They seem to embrace a strategy—not just today but on other days—about hoping and praying that no-one realises they are supposed to be in charge. They have a childlike inability to take responsibility for events and, like a child when things go wrong, as they inevitably do under these Clouseau-like ministers, their first response to a problem is to say, 'It was not me,' and to cast around for something or somebody else to blame. Finally, they will go for the big distraction in the hope that nobody notices they are supposed to be in charge.

The worst of this incompetence is the government's border protection failure. The problem with the pattern of behaviour that I outlined before, where they were unable to take responsibility for their actions and for things they should take responsibility for as the government of Australia, is that you need to be able to understand the causes of a problem if you are going to be able to solve it. You cannot fix a problem if you refuse to acknowledge it is broken and you cannot solve problems when your first instinct to everything that arises is to try to deflect blame. These characteristics are writ large in Labor's response to their border protection failures.

The previous Howard government had solved the problem of illegal arrivals when the Labor Party came to office in 2007. Through a series of resolute policies that were controversial at the time but were consistently held by the then government, the Howard government showed the people smugglers that they were not going to accept them controlling who came to Australia. As a result, the illegal arrivals virtually ceased. The people smugglers understood that they could not test the Howard government and win. They were not given mixed signals by the Howard government. They were not given mixed signals by the member for Berowra. They faced a consistent policy approach which left them in no doubt that Australia was not going to be a soft touch for their evil trade.

That was the situation that the Labor Party inherited when they came to office in 2007, yet in a fit of vanity they dismantled those successful policies and they celebrated their insane position and crowed about the moral superiority that their soft touch border protection was compared with the previous evil and racist policies of the Howard government. That was the moment that Labor broke Australia's border protection system. If they want to solve the problems that they have created, they should first admit that fact. Their foolishness instantly reinvigorated the people-smuggling trade and almost instantly the illegal boats started to arrive. Labor's response was in line with their characteristics that I outlined before—this childlike response that they refused to take responsibility for their own actions. Firstly, they refused to acknowledge that Australia had a problem. Anyone who mentioned illegal arrivals was immediately branded a racist.

It was not that long ago that Labor members in this House would simulate dog whistling if anyone from the opposition dared to get up and ask a question about their broken border protection system. So when opposition members rose to ask a question Labor members opposite simulated dog whistling to somehow express that this was just a dark strategy of the coalition to appeal to the worst aspects of the Australian nature. Of course, that says a lot about the way they feel about their fellow Australians.

It was not long ago that illegal arrivals in illegal boats were not even considered a legitimate concern by the Labor Party. But as the problem got worse they could not continue to pretend that it did not exist, so they moved to the next stage of their childlike pathological behaviour, and that is finding somebody else or something else to blame. The Prime Minister got up and said, 'It has nothing to do with us, it has nothing to do with our policy changes; it is all about push factors, it is all about the international situation that has somehow significantly got worse since the Labor Party was elected.' By refusing to admit what everyone else could see—that it was their dismantling of the border protection system that was actually the pull factor causing this crisis—Labor then reverted to type and said: 'It wasn't us. Yes, we dismantled the tough border protection system that we inherited. Yes, we crowed about our more humane approach.' The minister at the time, Minister Chris Evans, said that it was his proudest day in politics when he dismantled the Howard government's successful border protection solution. They refused to acknowledge that it was their approach that resulted in the reinvigoration of the people-smuggling trade—it was all out of their control and it had nothing to do with them. The sheer silliness of this argument finally saw Labor abandon it, and the damage it had done to then Prime Minister Rudd saw him replaced by Prime Minister Gillard. She nominated border protection as one of the serious areas where her predecessor had failed and said that they would be taking a different approach.

Under Prime Minister Gillard, Labor finally accepted—at least within their own internal thinking—that it was their policies that had created this border protection crisis. So she moved to embrace offshore processing, a policy that she had previously vilified and that she had said was expensive and wrong in principle. But she did it in a typically incompetent way by talking to the head of state of East Timor, the country she nominated for the regional processing centre, without once talking to the government of East Timor. As soon as that was announced, there was a predictable response in East Timor. They said that they were not interested, and they made it very clear that they were not interested in hosting Julia Gillard's election-era thought bubble.

But the government still clung to it. They clung to the fiction that somehow they were negotiating with the East Timorese, much to the embarrassment of Australian diplomats and other Australians who had to go out and pretend that they were continuing to argue or negotiate for this policy. It was finally abandoned when she came up with some further offshore processing solutions—or alleged solutions.

The next one was PNG, re-embracing the Manus Island detention centre, a policy approach that she had vilified when it was pursued by the Howard government. But again, the government so badly mishandled it—even though the Papua New Guinea government was prepared to talk to the Australian government about reopening that facility—that they managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, as they always do, by sending up such a low-level functionary to Papua New Guinea that the Papua New Guinea government considered it a grave insult and refused to take the negotiations any further.

Then they came up with the Malaysian solution, a five-for-one people swap with the Malaysian government that had the Australian taxpayer paying all the costs and whose cap would have already been reached by the 1,170 arrivals we have seen since July, when they signed this arrangement.

It is the border protection authorities, of course, that pay the price for Labor's incompetence. We have seen today the low morale and the problems within border protection's fleet. Customs and Border Protection Command have consistently been asked by this government to do significantly more with significantly less. It is those people who are paying the price for Labor's failures here in Canberra to get this policy right.

You cannot solve a problem that you do not acknowledge exists, and you cannot solve a problem if you cannot work out what the root causes of that problem are. The root causes of Australia's current vacuum in border protection policy are the actions that the Labor Party have taken since they came into office to dismantle the robust system of border protection that they inherited. They abolished the offshore processing that they now apparently so vehemently believe in. They abolished temporary protection visas and they did not have the courage to implement their stated policy before the 2007 election, which was to tow the boats back when it was safe and appropriate to do so.

The Labor Party has options to fix this mess. All they need to do is accept the coalition's sensible amendment to their migration amendments—one sensible amendment, an amendment that they said was so vital just a year ago—and they could solve this problem by re-embracing the proven three-pronged approach of the coalition. It is an approach we have tried when we faced this problem in the past and an approach that we know has succeeded: the reintroduction of temporary protection visas; offshore processing on the island nation of Nauru; and towing the boats back, as is appropriate. The option is there to have a successful policy that works to restore Australia's border protection sovereignty. (Time expired)

Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have heard it said that half the job of writing history is hiding the truth, and we do have a great degree of that happening right now. We are being asked to embrace a suite of policies that has been advocated by the other side to deal with a critical issue that they claim their track record proves works, when the reality says otherwise.

I do love how they now refer to the idea of tow-backs. During the campaign I never saw any asterisks next to their policy about stopping the boats. There was never an asterisk on those brochures. Where they said, 'Stop the boats,' they never referred to the asterisk that said 'wherever possible'. They said in definite terms that their policy was to do just that. Now we have a situation where they had to put the clarifier on that to say that they will do it 'wherever possible', knowing that the possible is impossible and that countries like Indonesia will refuse—countries, by the way, that we are being urged to deal with on these matters only if they have signed the refugee convention, and in Indonesia's case they have not. They say that they would turn back the boats to a country that would not receive those boats—a policy at the outset that is simply flawed and will not work. They talk about, for example, Nauru. Only in recent weeks we have had the Secretary of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship before Senate estimates saying that the department's view is that the Nauru option simply would not work and that the combination of circumstances at the end of 2001 could not be repeated successfully—a policy that they tried to use back then would fail even more dismally now, with the passage of time. Why? The fact is that people smugglers and those seeking to enter Australia know the facts about the so-called Pacific solution. On the decision to use Nauru, I will refer to the facts: 1,900 people arrived by boat. Of those that were processed and found to be refugees, 95 per cent ended up being settled in Australia. Where is the deterrence? It is nonexistent. In other words, Nauru had a 95 per cent failure rate in stopping the boats.

The situation is similar with temporary protection visas. It is worth noting this triumvirate of failure in turning the boats back, which will not happen because Indonesia will not accept them. With Nauru there is no deterrent—95 per cent of people were resettled, because they were found to be genuine refugees, in either Australia or New Zealand. In the two years after TPVs were introduced, 8,000 people jumped on unsafe boats. Many of them were women and children, and ultimately 90 per cent of those granted a TPV were granted permanent settlement in Australia. So we come back to the point: what was the success rate of this policy of stopping the boats? There was no success rate to boast about; there was a 90 per cent failure rate.

The issues that we are dealing with here—regardless of the inflated terms that are used, such as that we are seeing our borders completely overrun—from my perspective were brought into sharp relief by the events of the last year: in particular, what happened in Christmas Island. The focus for both sides of this House has to be the safety of those asylum seekers who are being taken advantage of by people who seek to profit on desperation—the people who suggest that getting on a boat that is clearly unseaworthy will provide guaranteed safe passage, when nothing could be further from the truth. The vessels are unseaworthy, people are crammed upon them and, as has been indicated previously, four out of every 100 people who make that trip disappear or perish.

For both sides of the House, our focus and responsibility has to be on dealing with a critical safety situation and finding an effective deterrent. The things that are currently advocated based on previous policy simply will not work. Someone that the other side hold up as an authority on this matter, the member for Berowra, in his candour admitted that we have to go beyond what is being looked at by even their side. That is in line with the secretary of the department of immigration saying that, if you are relying on policies from years gone past, you can expect that they will not deliver. They did not deliver then; they will not deliver now. You have to think beyond that.

We are being told to embrace a series of policies that will not deal, as I said, with the critical safety issues of people being crammed on unseaworthy vessels. On top of that, as has been indicated by the minister for immigration and as we heard when members in this House formed the parliamentary inquiry—and some of those people are here today, including the member for Stirling—members of the Navy are forced to engage in rescues on seas that are turbulent, such as those experienced in December last year, and we can expect to experience turbulent seas in the coming months as the monsoon season hits. That turbulence causes vessels to break up, leaving a film of diesel on the water. Members of the RAN try to reach into those waters to pick up people whose limbs slip from their arms, putting at risk not only the lives, obviously, of the asylum seekers but also the very personnel with the responsibility of ensuring that border protection is undertaken and undertaken safely. We put at risk the rescuers while they are trying to save the people that are desperate to be rescued. It is simply untenable and unacceptable for us to continue with a policy to, for example, return to a suite of failed policies to create a deterrence effect, when our responsibility is to find what works. We cannot keep embracing that failure.

Again, from my point of view, both sides of this House have the responsibility to deal in a calm, clear and methodical way with this issue, which affects both the people who are trying to come here because of desperate circumstances and the ones that have to save them. There is no point continuing to engage in politics and point-scoring when we have that challenge.

The test for us on both sides of the chamber is to find out what works. What will clearly work is not just at the point at which people arrive here; it is at the other end, in their region—deterrence. For us to be successful we need to be able to harness the cooperation of all countries in the region, and we have been trying to do that. We have been doing that through work with PNG, and I know that there are people in the chamber right now who have been working closely with the PNG government to build up cooperation. We have Indonesia and we have Malaysia. If we agree that we need a regional solution, can someone seated opposite tell me how to build regional commitment on this issue when we go out and bag out countries like Malaysia? We are relying on their cooperation at a time when the government is embarking on a series of reforms to change the way they work, and you go and bag them out.

It is not only about those countries; when other countries in the region see how one of their neighbours is treated and we turn to them for help, do you think they would seriously want to help when the reputation of their neighbours has been so solidly trashed in our country? It is inexplicable that you would believe that you would be able to get that regional support. The test for us is to find a way to cooperate on this issue. We have to do better. (Time expired)

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before calling the member for Mayo I would remind the government whip that I am not bagging anyone out, and that the word 'you' refers to the occupant of the chair and not to those opposite.

Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party, Chairman of the Scrutiny of Government Waste Committee) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the matter of public importance which has been moved by the member for Cook, the shadow minister, and I follow the member for Stirling's earlier contribution. This is an MPI about the government's failure to implement proven policies to protect our borders, and there are many to talk about in respect of the Labor Party's failed policies that they have tried to implement since they came to government in 2007.

I want to start by expressing my sympathy for what happened last night in Indonesia. It is, of course, a tragedy when people lose their lives in these circumstances, and I think we all acknowledged that at the very beginning. But we are debating this issue again in this place because a proven solution was removed in 2008 by the former Prime Minister, the then Minister for Immigration and Citizenship and the Labor Party. As the member for Stirling so rightly pointed out, they came to government with a moral superiority that we saw for so many years when it came to this issue. We endured it for so many years, particularly in 2001 with the Labor Party crowing about their moral superiority and how they were much more humanitarian when it came to these issues than the Liberal Party and coalition were during our time in government. We saw this in election campaign after election campaign. In fact, the member for Adelaide ran a very vicious campaign against the then member for Adelaide, Trish Worth, to win that seat in 2004. She highlighted examples and made great play on the fact that Trish Worth supported the policies of the then Howard government. She ran a very nasty campaign to get elected, and I wonder whether she will say in her next brochure to her electorate that she wants to send children to Malaysia. It will be very interesting to see whether the member for Adelaide still maintains that humanitarian approach and that predisposition where she seemed to claim such superiority over the then member for Adelaide in 2004. I would be very surprised if she does that.

On many occasions during the Howard government we heard the abuse that was directed at the member for Berowra when he was the minister for immigration. What he put up with on a personal level was nothing but a disgrace in public life. Today we debate about signs being put up at rallies. Of course, these are unfortunate and needless, but what the member for Berowra and other ministers in the former Howard government put up with—and what the member for Adelaide put up with—during those debates makes those pale into insignificance.

The behaviour that the Labor Party engaged in during those years and the accusations they made about those of us on this side of the chamber—particularly those who were serving—was disgraceful. They now live and enjoy their own pool which they swim in, with proposals that they put forward and which we know that most of their caucus do not support and have never supported. We know that some of these people are privately ecstatic that the proposal the minister for immigration put to the parliament has not even been put to a vote, because they did not want their names on the Hansard. The Prime Minister's great call was that she wanted to see members of the coalition's names on the Hansard. Let me put this on the record: I will be very proud to have my name on the Hansard as voting against this Malaysian proposal. It is a disgrace—an utter disgrace. It is from a group of people who for so long claimed superiority on this subject, and they should be ashamed of themselves.

To put this policy issue which confronts our country into some context, there are some 10 million people worldwide who the UNHCR says are legitimate refugees. They seek a better life and they are living in camps in large part in squalor—particularly in Africa. They live in terrible circumstances that none of us would support. In Australia we offer a humanitarian program to take some of those people—a small number of those people, granted. Some would argue—and in fact I have said—that we should consider taking more in our humanitarian programs and offer some more places to people who are in these horrific circumstances. I refer to the member for Berowra, who has said in this place before and said to me privately that he has visited nearly all of these refugee camps around the globe and that the situations that many of these people find themselves in are nothing short of terrible, disgraceful and beyond belief. So, obviously, we are faced with a choice when it comes to how we allocate those 15,000 or so spots each year for the very special privilege of Australian citizenship and a chance at another life.

We must have a way to manage people's entry into our country. That is something that we all largely agree on. Some think that we should have a much more open approach; we say that we should decide who gets that opportunity at a new life. To do that, the Howard government put a set of policies in place which prevented the people smugglers deciding who got those humanitarian visas. We put in policies which ensured that our sovereign nation got to choose who it was who got an opportunity at a new life, because we cannot take them all. As much as we care very much about people across the globe, we have to have a system of management. We have to ensure we know who is entering our country, we have to know the circumstances in which they enter and we have to be able to decide which of those should get the opportunity to stay.

The policies that we implemented in government took some time to work, but they worked nonetheless. They took some time to work, but by the time of the 2007 election the boats had stopped. The member for Chifley said before that we should look at the evidence when it comes to the Pacific solution. He tried to paint a picture that the Pacific solution was just a stop on the way. The point he did not make was that the numbers that were being processed through the centre on Nauru in the Pacific solution had reduced by such an amount that I think there were four people in detention when the Rudd government was elected in November 2007—four!

Since 2008, since those laws changed, some 12,000 people have attempted to enter our country by boat. As the member for Stirling so rightly pointed out, the Labor Party at first claimed that was from push factors and then tried to implement a completely and utterly racist policy of freezing the processing of certain individuals. Then, when there was a change of leadership in the Labor Party, they tried to implement an East Timor solution without contacting the East Timorese first. When that got lost in the Timor Sea, they came up with another proposal—the Malaysian people swap proposal, which has now come to an abrupt halt because they will not agree to a simple proposition from our side that the country to do offshore processing should be a party to the UN convention.

The consequences we are seeing across Australia are vast and we have talked about them often. We have seen a massive waste of money to deal with number of arrivals we have had. In my own electorate the Inverbrackie centre, which was foisted on the people of the Adelaide Hills 12 months ago and began operating in late December 2010, has cost in its first six months alone $27 million. It is an extraordinary amount of money for around 300 people on average at any one time. The upgrade of each property cost $32,000, even though there were defence personnel and their families living in them almost until the point they were turned into a detention facility. It has cost over $6 million to refurbish the houses. Nearly $2 million has been spent on interpreters and translators. The total cost of phone usage in the first six months was $13,000. The cost of internet usage was $23,000. All these costs were incurred because the laws were changed in September 2008 and the boats have not stopped coming since. The member for Cook, the shadow minister, has said that if we are elected and we get the opportunity to implement our three-prong strategy to stop the boats we will shut down the Inverbrackie detention facility, because it costs too much money. It is the wrong policy, it is the wrong place and the community never had an opportunity to have their say about whether it should be there.

We were told before the last election there would be no more onshore detention centres and, quite clearly, that is a broken promise. We were told when the Inverbrackie facility was first established that there would be a great economic boost to the region, which has also proved to be false. The government's policies have failed. They had an opportunity to adopt policies that worked—policies put in by the Howard government—and they should be put in again. (Time expired)

Laurie Ferguson (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

At the outset of my contribution to this matter of public importance I make the comment that if the problem was solved as the previous member suggested then the Australian taxpayers have got a right to ask why millions and millions of their dollars were spent on an edifice on Christmas Island. Why was it needed if the problem had disappeared? It was all over and there was never going to be boats again. It is a very real question when you are lauding the possibilities of increased taxpayer funding for immigration. Why was it constructed if the problem had been solved?

We are here today because of a tragic event off west Java. The people on that boat represent the dynamics of our problem—people who indisputably had genuine claims. Some are driven here by poverty to try to manipulate the refugee convention while others are encouraged by the possibilities of a country that a very kind legal system would give them in fighting the process for decades. Others are encouraged by the fact that essentially people cannot be deported because countries such as Iran will not take people back or because it is hard to prove people's identity when they do not have documents. Those people on the boats encompass all those dynamics, all those possibilities. I note that the use of the term 'protecting our borders' is designed to give another subliminal message to the electorate, basically to say that maybe there is some security or defence danger in these boats. That is what it is all about. That is why at the outset I wanted to reiterate the diverse reasons that drive people to undertake this journey.

Another speaker has commented on the views of the former member for Cook that, without Malaysia, boats see no impediment. Despite many disagreements with him, I deeply respect his genuine views on this matter. We have heard a lot of rhetoric throughout this debate that we should adopt Nauru, and we know over the past few months being a signatory to the UN convention is seemingly the be-all and end-all for those opposite. I make the point again that, as of April this year, there were 144 signatories to this convention. They include Afghanistan, Iran, Zimbabwe, Yemen, Sudan, the Congo Democratic Republic. They are countries that are basically exporting one thing to the world—refugee claimants—and yet they are signatories. Supposedly, because Malaysia is not a signatory, an effective policy has been damned. Previously, the opposition were able in government to say it was all right to send people to Nauru, despite the fact that it was not a signatory.

We do not have to rely on ancient history; we can also talk about more modern history. On 27 July last year, the member for Curtin said in a press conference that she, on behalf of the opposition, did not consider that being a signatory was a precondition for these kinds of processing areas. As late as July last year, she denied this fundamental requirement. We know they are grasping at any possibility to try to thwart the government—Nauru or nothing. We all know that on Nauru the possibilities for constructive employment are minimal—something that Malaysia has moved towards. We know that buildings that were used as detention centres before are now being used for schoolchildren. We also know there are water shortages. Yet the opposition runs around condemning Malaysia. I and the member for Melbourne Ports have been amongst those who have condemned Malaysia with regard to human rights. But at least Anwar Ibrahim could have his day in court; he could fight through a legal process. I was speaking to two MPs from Malaysian opposition party DAP the other week at a Tamil event who have doubts as to why the government in Malaysia is liberalising; they say it is all about the next elections and that Najib Razak is just manipulating for electoral purposes. But the fact of life is that internal security measures that have been there for decades are basically going to end next year. I want to quote Richard Towle about Malaysia. In an article on 2 November he noted:

n the context of the Malaysian arrangements, the assurances of legal stay and community-based reception for all transferees can be seen as a more positive protection environment than protracted—and in some cases indefinite—detention that many face here in Australia ...

Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Who is he, Laurie?

Laurie Ferguson (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The UNHCR regional representative. He also noted:

All refugees in Malaysia would ... be registered within the government's immigration database and thus protected from arbitrary arrest and detention.

They are pretty positive comments about a Commonwealth country, which the opposition has started to basically say is on the same level as North Korea. That is the kind of argument that is being put here, just to make sure that the government cannot have an effective policy in this area. They want to jump off the buildings, joyous at every boat that arrives, saying that the government has failed, saying it is out of control, putting out negative comments about the people involved.

I would also note about TPVs, towing boats away and Nauru as the supposed sublime solution that, as was noted earlier, 8,000 people came after the TPV provisions came in. I would question TPVs, quite frankly, on moral grounds as well. I believe that people who come here by boat and plane have advantages in getting into this country as opposed to people in the camps and the slums in Quetta and around Kenya. But once it has been decided that they are refugees, is it morally right that they are on TPVs and waiting for years to be reunited with their families? These are people we have determined are refugees. We might dispute that others are; we might have doubts about others. But the opposition are saying that this is a defensible policy as a discouragement, and yet 8,000 people came here afterwards anyway because they were so desperate.

We have heard from the Navy and various people about the dangers of towing these boats away. We know now that the opposition have put in the condition 'wherever possible'. It is not just a phone call to the Leader of the Opposition now; it is a bit more complex—it is only wherever it is judged possible. Also, the so-called central requirement that a country is a UNHCR signatory is abandoned: the boats will be towed back to Indonesia. These are the kinds of inconsistencies we are seeing from those opposite.

They are trying to mislead the public that these boats mean that Malaysia cannot be a solution. We all know that in the months leading up to the High Court's late August decision there was debate about the legality of it and there was uncertainty. I think the people smugglers would have had a reasonable proposition in putting to people that this might not hold. The opposition talk about the increase in boats coming here, but we know that even after they announced the glorious suggestion of Nauru, 2,000 people still came here.

They talk about 'one sensible amendment'. The one sensible amendment is that we totally capitulate to a policy that their deputy leader a year ago said was not necessary. They come in here and deride the changes that this government has introduced. They say that what is happening has got nothing to do with the conclusion of the war in Sri Lanka; nothing to do with the possibility of US forces getting out of Iraq; nothing to do with concrete conditions inside countries. But anyone that follows this issue knows that that is an ingredient. It is totally preposterous to say we should capitulate to their situation.

Finally, I what to turn to the Greens. Every time there is a debate in this area we see their solution: an increased intake per se. I am not opposed to increases, but to say that increasing this country's intake—an admittedly high intake per capita, but very minor in terms of the overall international problem—can somehow solve this problem is preposterous. We are talking about 10½ million people internationally, as of earlier this year. We are talking about 1.9 million people in Pakistan; 1.1 million people in Iran; and 5½ million in Asia, more than half of them in our region. To say, every time there is a debate about the need to bring in disincentives for people to undertake perilous journeys, that somehow the boats are not going to come if we increase the intake is absolutely preposterous.

Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Given the opposition's past rhetoric, I would have thought they would have been ashamed to raise this issue. We remember their election ads about real action and stopping the boats, the ads with the red arrows coming down to Australia, and the Leader of the Opposition's talk of a so-called invasion.

For those of us who believe in an ordered, fair and humane immigration program, there is a place for offshore processing in Australia's migration policy. We recall that in the time of the Fraser government there were regional processing centres in Vietnam and Malaysia and they had bipartisan support. This was a mature and rational way of dealing with this problem. By contrast now, those opposite are one moment inciting fear of unauthorised boat arrivals and the next, showing faux concern about human rights and caning in Malaysia. What hypocrisy! We see fake concern from the other side about the human rights of unauthorised arrivals; then they use the opposite arguments on the plight of asylum seekers to try to benefit their own political interests.

The conservative columnist Paul Sheehan argued in the Sydney Morning Herald that the Leader of the Opposition was making the greatest 'misstep' of his leadership in opposing our proposed Malaysia transfer agreement. Sheehan said:

… as a matter of principle it has an aura of cant and hypocrisy. The great majority of the people who would vote for an Abbott-led Coalition want strong border protection. It is a core issue.

I hope the member for Indi is listening to this. It is a matter of principle. Of course, she will probably denigrate Mr Sheehan from the Sydney Morning Herald.

The member for Warringah, in my view, has abandoned his long-held policy. He knows that legislation to deal with the doubts about any government's ability to act is clearly needed. He knows this. It was clearly identified by Mr Kitney in the Australian Financial Review on 14 September this year:

For a third time, Abbott took his play-it-hard tactics too far. … he indicated a double-dissolution election might be needed. In other words, the limbo created by the High Court's rejection of the Malaysia solution could continue indefinitely as amendments to the Migration Act are shuffled between the two houses.

Won't that be a wonderful thing for the people smugglers—to bring down as many boats as they like, while we have elections and discuss this even further.

The opposition should instead be taking the responsible action of supporting the government, as we did when we were in opposition. I know this very well because I worked very closely with the then government to make sure that the national security interests of Australia were put ahead of partisan political interests on the issue of terrorism post September 11. Quite naturally, some on this side did not want the Attorney-General alone to decide who would be classified as a terrorist group. At the same time, this side did not want people who were involved in events like 9-11 to be allowed to come to Australia. We resolved it, like mature rational people. The opposition worked with the government and passed resolutions in the Senate that allowed parliament to review the recommendations of the intelligence services, and the intelligence committee goes through them very responsibly every year. We have not rejected them once. That is an example of us acting together with the other side of politics in the national interest.

But here we have a situation where the opposition cannot do this. They only see the short-term politics of it. They have all of these people on the other side who have never before—I have been through all of their records—spoken about human rights in Malaysia. They have never once mentioned the human rights conventions or the refugee conventions. And now they cite Iran and Pakistan signing the United Nations Convention on Refugees as the reason we can send refugees off to those places. That is what the member for Cook wants to do. What an insane policy, a crazy policy. Do you think we would really support doing something like that? I do not believe even the member for Indi would support that. Of course she would not. It is just rhetoric. It is rhetoric to try to make use of the politics of this occasion. It is a disgrace.

Many people have compared the opposition's behaviour to the character in the film The Exorcisttheir heads twist around and around. One minute they are purporting the invasion of Australia and the next minute they are talking about the human rights of people in Malaysia. Haven't we got any common sense? Of course we do, and common sense says that we should write an agreement with a country like Malaysia. As the member for Werriwa said, 'I bow to no-one in being a critic of Malaysia.' We have been critics of human rights in Malaysia, when all of those opposite, apart from the member for Wentworth, were silent on it. They were absolutely silent over there about Malaysian human rights prior to a Labor government suggesting an arrangement with Malaysia.

Does the member for Indi think an agreement written by Australia with Malaysia—and supervised, as the member for Werriwa said, by the UNHCR and by the Australian media—is not worth more than a black-letter law written with a country like Iran? A UN convention on refugees with Iran? Member for Indi, what a joke! Do you really think that the member for Cook's proposal to send people to Iran and to sign black-letter treaties with Iran on refugees is worth more than Australia signing a treaty, which would be supervised by the UNHCR, with a responsible country like Malaysia—a country that I strongly disagree with on human rights?

The UNHCR says this is a perfectly respectable way of dealing with things. The Australian media would be crawling all over this agreement. In my view, there would be no breach of human rights in Malaysia over the 800 people who would prospectively return there, because both the UNHCR and the Australian media would see that the human rights of those people were strongly looked after.

As the member for Werriwa said, it is incredible when you examine the statements of the shadow minister for immigration and indeed the member for Curtin on these issues. The member for Curtin said that there was no need to sign these treaties last year—but that was before we advanced the Malaysian suggestion. The member for Murray, the predecessor of the member for Cook as shadow minister for immigration, had these words to say on Radio 2SM:

The closure of Nauru and Manus Island … of course they had basically—what shall we say—outlived their need …

I know the member for Indi does not get on very well with the member for Murray, but she said:

I do not think we need to again have Nauru and Manus Island operating, because we've got of course Christmas Island.

That was the opposition's policy then, but now they have a different one. Like in TheExorcist, their heads are turning around and around and around with hypocrisy and cant.

I also want to make sure that people understand what the member for Werriwa was saying about the member for Curtin, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition who had a few cracks at me about my past comments on Christmas Island. On 27 July 2011, she said, 'The coalition does not consider that being a signatory to the refugee convention is a precondition for hosting processing centres.' It is there in black and white; her own words. Of course, now, because the Labor government suggests that the opposition should act responsibility with us in national security interests to deter people from these terrible voyages—and we have seen the results of them in the last few days—they will not act with us. They demand that Labor act responsibly, which we do whenever these issues come up. I was involved in the national security decision with Senator Faulkner and the people on our side. We worked with Mr Ruddock and we achieved a result. The opposition stand for hypocrisy and cant on this issue.

Stephen Jones (Throsby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to make a few brief contributions to this important debate. As I rise to my feet to speak on this matter of public importance that has been brought to the attention of the parliament by those opposite, I make the observation that this matter is so important to them that there is not a single member of the other side, apart from the member for Indi, who has bothered to remain in the chamber to listen to this important debate. Recently we gave the opportunity to one of the members opposite to make a further contribution to this debate, but it was not important enough for him to rise to his feet to inform the chamber of his views.

The debate comes at a tragic time in our nation's history. I do not think any right-minded Australian would have had anything but sorrow in their hearts when they turned on the radio this morning and heard that yet another boat had sunk off the coast of Indonesia leading to the death of, we understand, somewhere in the vicinity of 20 men, women and children. It is indeed a tragedy, which both sides of the House say they are committed to avoiding by putting in place policies that will work. But only those on this side have bills before the House that may have some hope of attempting to stop another such tragedy.

When we listen to the contributions of those opposite and listen to the policies they put forward, it really is 'back to the future'. There are three elements to the policies of those opposite. The first is that they are somehow going to turn the boats around. As the minister has quite rightly said in this debate, there is nowhere for the boats to be turned around to. We know that the coalition's policy will not work. We know this because all the experts and our experience has shown that, when those who are smuggling people in desperation from Indonesia and other places to Australia and are interdicted by a vehicle from the Australian Customs Service, one of the first things they do is take the axe to the bottom of the boat to ensure that it cannot be turned around. Any suggestion that a reasonable solution to this policy is to turn the boat around is purely designed for political points and not for humanitarian and certainly not for any basis which is going to have an effect on stopping people smuggling and getting a more orderly process over the refugee intake in this country.

The second solution that is proffered is Nauru. We know that those opposite have very little regard for the advice of experts. When economists criticise their climate change policy, they attack the economists, and when experts from the Department of Immigration and Citizenship say that the coalition's policy of Nauru simply will not work, they attack the advice. We know that Nauru will not work because it is within the wit and capacity of those who are engaged in the people-smuggling business to work out that over 95 per cent of the people who were transferred to Nauru, when it was in operation as an immigration detention centre, ended up in either Australia or New Zealand. So it remains a pretty good bet. If the purpose of Nauru is merely to torture those wretched souls before they find themselves with permanent protection here in Australia or New Zealand, then you really have to ask yourself what lies in the hearts of those who proffer that as a solution. Is that really the best that they can come up with—to torture those wretched souls by making them spend a year or two, or three or four on Nauru before we finally resettle them in Australia? If that is the best that they can offer, then you really have to ask yourself what lies in the hearts of those who proffer that as a solution.

Finally, we are led to believe that the reintroduction of temporary protection visas is going to be a solution. I think the member for Werriwa, the member for Melbourne Ports and the member for Chifley have taken that proposition to task as well. We know that it will not work and it is not right. If somebody has been found to be a refugee, then it is our obligation under our international treaties to ensure that we provide them with permanent protection. It is not right to leave these people with the Sword of Damocles hanging over their heads. It is not right, and we know that it is worse than not right—it is not effective. We know that the use of temporary protection visas in the period when they were in operation under the former Howard government actually led to an increase in unaccompanied minors being placed on boats by families and people smugglers out of Indonesia and Malaysia. The reason that led to the increase in unaccompanied minors being placed on boats for those perilous journeys is they were unable, through the normal humanitarian family reunification programs which are available to those who have permanent protection, to gain access to family reunification. So, they had no choice but to put people on the boats and to put their lives and their fate in the hands of the people smugglers to come to Australia.

When placed under the spotlight and under scrutiny we see the three prongs to the policies of those opposite. They are not right, they are morally bankrupt and they are ineffective. At their best the policies are merely designed to torture those wretched souls who have placed their lives and their fate in the hands of the people smugglers to make that perilous journey to Australia. They will have absolutely no effect in deterring people from taking that journey. If that is the simple objective of their policies then we know it will not work.

We say to those opposite—to those who think that this is a matter of such public importance that it warranted bringing the debate on today but who did not have the courage or the stamina to turn up in the chamber to join in the debate—that, if they were serious about dealing with this issue, if they were serious about ensuring that we do not see a repeat of the tragedy that Australians woke up to when they turned on their radios or picked up the newspaper from their doorstep this morning, then they would do the right thing. The right thing is to come down off the ledge, put the megaphone away and join with the government in reaching a truly bipartisan solution—one that is based on the best expert advice, one that will work, one that is not morally bankrupt and one that enables us to gain the trust of the Australian people to ensure we have an orderly border protection policy—and to do what I know the member for Werriwa, the member for Melbourne Ports and the member for Chifley, who have joined us in this debate, would like to see us do, and that is ensure that Australia, as a great democracy and a wealthy nation in this part of the world, is able to play a greater role in ensuring we meet our humanitarian—

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The time allotted for the discussion has concluded.