Tim Watts (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Residents in my electorate are outraged over the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection's decision to deny a boat full of Vietnamese asylum seekers due process. About three weeks ago, news leaked that the minister colluded with the Vietnamese government to return a boat to Vietnam without due process. We know little about this incident—only that people fleeing persecution and seeking our assistance were forcibly returned to the very place they were fleeing. Weeks after the incident, news leaked and the minister was forced to respond. The minister, instead of hanging his head in shame, hailed the mission, saying that:

The governments of Australia and Vietnam worked together to disrupt a people smuggling venture carrying 46 Vietnamese nationals … The 46 people were able to be safely returned to Vietnam after we were assured that they did not have a claim to protection and that we had met our international obligations.

This was a joint operation with a government that we know is repressing political dissidents. What happened to the people on this boat? Do we know? Does anyone in the government know? I have not heard.

In the year of the 40th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, we owe the Australian Vietnamese community better than this shabby treatment. We are not content with this government's willingness to treat these people as objects. The Australian Vietnamese community and the community at large demand to know more about this incident.