Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

The Rudd Labor government are absolutely committed to strong border protection policies. The fact is that we have invested more in border protection than any other government. What we are dealing with at the moment is a situation where we are seeing record flows of persons out of Afghanistan, which is causing pressure in the form of unlawful movement and irregular flows throughout the world. Australia is getting its share of those people fleeing Afghanistan.

I remind Senator Humphries that last year we had the fourth largest number of arrivals in a calendar year. The previous three record years were under the Howard government, and they were 1999, 2000 and 2001. The reason the numbers arriving decreased after that was that the Taliban fell in Afghanistan and people were no longer found to be refugees and were returned to Afghanistan if they sought asylum. The same occurred in Iraq, following the fall of Saddam Hussein. What we are dealing with at the moment is an international problem of an increased number of asylum seekers, more than 90 per cent of whom still go to Europe.

We have strong border protection in place. We have mandatory detention. We have offshore processing. Working with our neighbours, we are determined to combat this problem of unlawful arrivals. At the moment we are dealing with increased activity. We are seeking to work with our neighbours to try and stop the flow, to try and provide durable solutions for people, both in their home country and in countries of transit. We will continue to provide resources for border protection and resources to try and address this global problem of unlawful and irregular movement.