Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

In rising to speak on the Anti-People Smuggling and Other Measures Bill 2010 I would like to repeat and endorse some of the comments that have been made by some of my colleagues. The purpose of this bill is quite simply to make changes to the country’s anti-people-smuggling legislative framework. The aim is to create a range of new offences relating to people smuggling, extend the penalties for the most serious forms of people smuggling and make changes to six acts, including the Criminal Code and Migration Act—all worthy changes.

The changes that this bill seeks to make to the Criminal Code relate to targeting the people who provide assistance to people smugglers, whether it be through financial, organisational or other means. The penalty for this offence is a fine of $110,000, imprisonment for a maximum of 10 years or both. Changes to the Migration Act include offences for people who provide support to people smugglers, higher penalties for multiple offenders and a maximum 20-year prison term for those involved in aggravated smuggling crimes. This bill aims to extend the emergency authorisation provisions in the Surveillance Devices Act to offences under the Migration Act. It aims to simplify the criteria for the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act that agencies need to satisfy when they apply for telecommunications interception warrants against people smugglers. The bill aims to redefine the term ‘security’ in relation to the ASIO Act so that ASIO can do the job that we ask or expect them to do.

In speaking in support of these changes, it cannot but occur to me that these changes are necessary because of the dereliction of duty and responsibility that this government has had towards Australia’s border security. There is nothing so annoying as to have listened to the voluble and many interjections and claims from the other side that their policies have had nothing whatsoever to do with the influx of illegal arrivals. For two years we have been hearing from those on the other side claiming that their change of policies had nothing to do with the increased boat arrivals in this country. We know that is now hogwash because they are attempting to change their own legislation to tighten it up. It is unlikely to work because the changes that they have announced have not stopped the arrivals. They have not stopped the boats. We have not seen Mr Rudd turn the boats back.

The government has maintained for two years that it is push factors that are bringing people here. If it is push factors that are bringing people here, why do we need to change these domestic arrangements? The government knows that what it has been saying is codswallop. It knows that it has been trying to spin its way out of this, but it is catching up with the government. It is catching up with the government because the Australian people are sick and tired of a government that has lost control not only of our financial situation but also of its borders. I have said before that a nation that loses control of its borders loses control of its destiny. The Minister of Immigration and Citizenship, Senator Chris Evans, says:

... I make the point that push factors are responsible for the increased movement of people ...

Wrong. Senator Wortley says:

This situation has been driven by the push factors of conflict, persecution and insecurity ...

How is changing our domestic legislation going to change that? It is not. It is more spin from the Rudd government and from Senator Wortley. Senator Wong, the minister for failed policies, has now claimed:

The reality is that there are a great many factors contributing to the increase of asylum seekers around the world and in Australia. That is why the government has in place a strong border protection regime.

Senator Wong will probably pick up the border protection regime because it is another failed policy to put in her suite of ministerial failed policy portfolio. Senator McEwen says:

They are the classic factors that see people in many countries attempt to find safe haven and secure future in an alternative country. They are what we call the push factors.

I could go on. Senator Pratt—master of the push factor—Senator Bishop, Senator Carol Brown, Senator Carol Brown again, Senator Evans—I could go on and on and on. They have blamed everyone else and they have refused to acknowledge or accept there is a direct correlation from when they changed the border protection policies that worked so effectively under the previous government. There is a red dot on the graph and then it skyrocketed. When they changed the policy the boats started coming. It is interesting to note the Department of Immigration and Citizenship are five weeks behind in updating the graph on their website—five weeks of shame, five weeks of boats—because they clearly cannot keep up. They cannot tally it. Maybe it has gone off the scale. They have to get a new axis.

Whilst this government is trying to do something here, it is doing too little, too late. We support these measures. As the shadow minister, Scott Morrison, said:

In this bill, we are supporting a policy that we believe will help and will add.

We believe it will help and, if it does help, it will make a mockery of what those on the treasury benches, on the government side of this chamber, have been saying for two years. It is too little, too late from a government that has lost complete control. Labor have made a mess of Australia’s border protection policies and they will not be able to make up for the effect of these soft policies that Mr Rudd and his incompetent team of ministers have implemented. These measures alone will not make up for that. They do not offer a comprehensive solution to the border security problem that Mr Rudd and his government have created. These are soft policies that have encouraged people smugglers and they have resulted in the highest rate of arrivals on record. We are getting not three boats a year; we are getting three boats a week. Three boatloads of people are prepared to risk their lives and pay tens of thousands of dollars to people smugglers to come to Australia knowing that the policies of this government are soft.

We have heard about the $1.2 million contract to put these illegals up in a resort-style hotel. It is alarming. I am sure the Australian people would be alarmed at the headline today in the Age: ‘Private VIP jets transport asylum seekers’. This government spent $5.6 million to 15 March of this financial year on luxury chartered jets. It spent $3.6 million on 48 chartered flights the year before and $5.6 million this year. What are these chartered jets doing? They are flying these people who have arrived in this country illegally from the overcrowded detention centre on Christmas Island, which the same party in opposition said was going to be a white elephant, to resort-style accommodation in Queensland. I know many Australian families who would love to be put up at taxpayers’ expense in resort-style accommodation in Queensland—many of them—particularly if they are going to get flown there in a private VIP jet that normally flies VIP flights for celebrities.