Concetta Fierravanti-Wells (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration and Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship (Senator Evans) to questions without notice asked by Senators Fierravanti-Wells and Scullion today relating to border protection.

I rise once again to speak about what is fast becoming an absolute farce: the plan that this Prime Minister billed as his so-called Indonesian solution. It is now becoming an utter shambles. I cannot help but quote the comments of my colleague Tony Abbott yesterday evening on Lateline. Much has been said in the last few days about the former government’s Pacific solution but can I say, as Mr Abbott has said, ‘John Howard found a problem and created a solution; Kevin Rudd found a solution and has now created a problem.’

The opposition of course has been prosecuting its case in relation to this for quite some time. But now, finally, it is good to see that the media in this country is picking up on the issue. One only has to look at the blaring headlines in the daily papers over the last few days to see that. I will quote some of them: ‘Ad hoc solution no long-term answer’; ‘PM’s Indon plan all at sea’; ‘Local fury strands Rudd plan’; ‘Boat stand-off pressures Prime Minister’; and ‘Rudd isn’t clear on asylum seekers. How can voters make sense of it when his statements remain so confusing?’

We now have this situation where the Oceanic Viking has sailed over 2,000 kilometres. We have this absolutely chaotic situation where we really do not know what is going on. What this is showing is that this government’s plan is actually not a plan—it is a boat-by-boat situation and it seems to lurch from boat to boat. In fact, it is really just improvisation. We seem to go from one crisis to the next. One only has to read the press to see that even refugee advocate groups are now criticising this government. Last week at estimates the Ambassador for People-Smuggling Issues told us that it is his role to take a cross-government perspective on issues pertaining to people smuggling. He told us on 22 October:

We have not actually sat down with the Indonesians yet to negotiate what this framework will look like and what forms our support will take.

The day after, we had this $50 million tab being put on this so-called plan, which is effectively outsourcing our border protection policy failure to the Indonesians.

Of course, pressed on the issue, nobody in the government can give us any details in relation to it or tell us what the cost of this would be. The home affairs minister simply does not want to talk about it, and he probably does not know. Chances are that this $50 million so-called plan has been hatched somewhere in the Prime Minister’s office and there have been some frenzied calls to the Indonesian President, and all of a sudden it is being billed as a plan.

There is a hypocrisy about this. I pick up this point from an article by Piers Akerman in which he shows the hypocrisy. I see Senator Faulkner walking out. Senator Faulkner has been very keen in estimates to press the issue of engagement. Regarding the Senate select committee October 2002 report into a Certain Maritime Incident, Senator Faulkner was happy to prosecute and wanted to know all about Indonesian engagement, including the possible limits of disruption policy, and he asked a wave of questions. It was all very well then. The hypocrisy is that now that we ask for details the government is just shutting down on the issue.