Kay Patterson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I watched as those people came down, and I was there as they came into the Qantas hangar—these people who had been taken in by Australia and accommodated, at two weeks notice, through the amazing work of the immigration department, which was subjected to some appalling treatment in the press while Senator Vanstone was minister. The immigration department and the defence department worked together cooperatively. I was staggered and moved by the way in which they worked together, and I changed my attitude towards the defence forces. My concept of the defence forces had come from my father, who was a lieutenant in the Second World War and ran our house like it was an Army camp—he made a fantastic contribution, but that was my impression of soldiers. When I saw the defence personnel working with those Kosovars—playing football with the kids and sitting down to talk to and comfort some of the people who had lost family and homes—I saw a different side of the training of the Defence Force.

I have to interpose something here about the Northern Territory emergency response. I was alarmed when I saw some of the press reporting of the Defence Force. People were saying, ‘The Defence Force is going into the Northern Territory.’ That showed a complete lack of understanding and knowledge of the modern training of our defence forces. They are trained in warfare but they are also trained in peacekeeping. I think that maybe our defence forces should wear pale green hats or something similar when they are doing humanitarian community work in Australia, like the work with the Kosovars or the work in the Northern Territory. We accept them as peacemakers when they have blue hats on, but when they went into the Northern Territory there were references to the tanks rolling in and the troops being brought in. I thought that was offensive, totally unacceptable and totally misguided about the role the defence forces can play in building communities—and that they have been playing since Minister Herron, when he was Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, tried to address the issues. You would think, from what happened in the press, that we had done nothing. We have put in measure after measure. One of them was to have the defence forces go in some time ago.

I want to state here that we brought together the resources of our community, of the Public Service, the immigration department in particular, and of the defence forces to work with the Kosovars and then the East Timorese. There were nearly 6,000 people on our doorstep within a couple of weeks. We accommodated them, met their health needs, returned many of them very quickly and kept some of them for over a year. So we have a strong and proud record when it comes to our refugee and humanitarian program.

I would add here that, as a result of the Howard government’s policies aimed at reducing the number of illegal immigrants who come to Australia, the victims of profiteering people smugglers, we have been able to accommodate over a thousand more refugees every year than was the case under Labor. There have been thousands more refugees who have been resettled in Australia in a more orderly fashion as a result of our measures. We have had a strong migration program focused on skills, a strong refugee program focused on those with refugee status—approved by the UNHCR, not by people smugglers—coming here to Australia, and, as I said, a strong response to crises like those of Aceh, Kosovo and East Timor. We can demonstrate that we do that. You would think, from the way these bills have been presented, that we do not have a record on it.

Of course, global climate change phenomena should be a focus of all governments. We have been involved in global dialogue and, in addition, we have been providing significant financial assistance to our Pacific neighbours to monitor changes and assist them to respond. I will outline some of those measures. Since the late 1980s and early 1990s, we have had a South Pacific Sea Level and Climate Monitoring Project—SPSLCMP, as it is known in a shorter form.