Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Without further building on the events of yesterday, I just want to note that the prevarication by Cricket Australia over this incident is very, very disappointing. We've had the Australian Sports Commission come out and say that in an instance in amateur Olympic sports the athlete would be sent home on the next plane. That throws into light the completely inadequate response from Cricket Australia. I accept the need for an investigation, but where someone enters a guilty plea there traditionally is no trial; that person is guilty. I'm happy to have an investigation of everything else around those individuals, but once you're guilty we need Cricket Australia to act. Reducing the match fee to 25 per cent is patently inadequate and has embarrassed this nation over the last 48 hours far more, potentially, than the incident itself.

But on longer term issues, on the murders and the slaughters of South African farmers, I want to say that this is an incredibly complicated issue that obviously generates a great deal of interest and concern in this country and needs to be dealt with extremely carefully in this parliament, particularly if it does come to questions of the government. We need to be extremely cautious about the words we use around this issue lest it actually do more harm than good. There's a tiny town in South Africa with the longest place name in that nation. Translated into English, it means 'two buffaloes with one bullet, absolutely dead' and ends with 'fontein'. What we're talking about here is a single, carefully crafted strategy that gets both governments on board to finding a sensible solution.

Now, I'm not going to meddle in South African domestic policy; that's definitely not the job of anyone here. But we need to remember that the very impressive immigration system on which we have relied for so long, and the visa subclasses around humanitarian protection, are there to be used. My concern specifically is that DFAT might have taken a position that there are simply no grounds for using them in relation to South Africa. I simply urge my own department to look carefully at recent cases—the five-year increase in attacks on farmers and the very clear language coming out of a political party that is part of the parliament in South Africa. Here is one comment:

We need to unite as black people‚ there are less than five million whites in South Africa vs 45 millions of us. We can kill all these whites within two weeks. We have the army and the police. If those who are killing farmers can do it, what are you waiting for?

That is a voice within South African political life. I acknowledge the important role that Cyril Ramaphosa has in this very sensitive issue. That is a decision for South Africa. But here we need to ensure that these cases are thoroughly investigated and that we do not take a default position that these people are not eligible because of the colour of their skin. There is no racist overtone here, except that we are seeking the reverse—fair and equal treatment of people wherever they live—and, under the immigration system that we have, we are perfectly capable of delivering it.