Judith Adams (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to take note of answers given by Senator Evans. Mr Rudd’s border protection policy is in complete chaos. As ever, he is all talk and no action. It appears that Mr Rudd has no solution in Indonesia or anywhere else for the border protection policy chaos he has created. The Prime Minister still has 78 asylum seekers stranded at sea on the Oceanic Viking because of his failure to recognise the consequences of his own decisions and to provide a new and sustainable solution. All week the opposition has been asking questions of the Prime Minister about his role in the Oceanic Viking fiasco, and he has been washing his hands of it.

The minister in his answer at question time today said he was confident these people will be disembarking in Indonesia in the near future. I was horrified to read on the Australian news website at lunchtime today:

The standoff creates a dilemma for Australian officials, with government sources confirming any forcible removals from the Oceanic Viking would be the responsibility of the Australian crew, and not Indonesian police.

It is understood Indonesian police have no authority to act in such a fashion aboard an Australian ship, leaving the 30-odd crew aboard the Viking the task of evicting any intransigents.

This is of great concern to me. As part of the Australian Defence Force Parliamentary Program, last year I spent a week in the Torres Strait with Border Protection Command, under commander Rear Admiral Allan du Toit. I really wonder if the people on HMAS Wollongong whom I spent time with thought that they might end up having to do something like what the 30 personnel on the Oceanic Viking may have to do. It just beggars belief.

I will go to Michelle Grattan’s comments today:

Australia obviously has no control over the detention centre to which the people are bound and it has to rely on the international agencies to try to ensure the people are treated decently. For a Government spruiking its humane approach, this is, at best, awkward.

Well, where do we go from here? This Australian ship has been floating around in the ocean for over a week and we still have no idea who is in control of the issue. Presumably it is the Prime Minister, but he says he cannot recall the directives and sequence of events. So, if he is in control, he must be completely and utterly out of control. Who is really dealing with this issue? The foreign minister has today not ruled out the use of force to remove the Sri Lankans from the Oceanic Viking. That is why I asked: will it be up to the 30-man crew on the Oceanic Viking to do this job?

Mr Rudd and Labor must now acknowledge that they have a huge problem and they should stop trying to spin the boats away. Labor are conflicted, divided and confused on border protection, and the people smugglers know it. The arrival of the 45th boat and 2,069 people since August 2008 demonstrates that Mr Rudd and Labor’s policy of winding back our border protection regime has failed. The coalition’s record on border protection speaks for itself, and it is well known to the Australian people and the people smugglers. The Rudd Labor government has gone soft on border protection and the people of my state of Western Australia in particular are very much taking notice of this. The former Howard government’s tough stance on border protection speaks for itself. The boats stopped coming and people smugglers had to look elsewhere.