Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Anti-People Smuggling and Other Measures Bill 2010, currently before the Senate, seeks to amend six principal acts: the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Act, the Criminal Code Act, the Migration Act, the Proceeds of Crime Act, the Surveillance Devices Act and the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act.

In his second reading speech on this bill, the minister set out the proposed amendments to the various principal acts. In describing the purpose of the bill he stated:

This bill will strengthen the Commonwealth’s anti-people smuggling legislative framework, supporting the government’s plan to combat people smuggling.

I, and those on this side of the chamber, have no objection to supporting legislation that is designed to combat the insidious people-smuggling trade. But, as I will demonstrate in my contribution to this debate, this bill is too little too late and it has only become necessary because of the deliberate policy of the Rudd Labor government to soften the coalition’s tough but fair border protection policies.

As I have indicated, this bill amends six principal acts. Firstly, the bill seeks to ensure that people smuggling is comprehensively criminalised in Australian law, with tough penalties for the most serious forms of the insidious crime of people smuggling. Secondly, the bill amends the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act, the Surveillance Devices Act and the ASIO Act to provide the legislative authority to investigate people-smuggling activities and to enable law enforcement and national security agencies to play a greater role in support of whole-of-government efforts to address people smuggling and other serious threats to Australia’s territorial and border integrity.

Thirdly, the bill introduces a new offence of providing material support or resources for people-smuggling activities. Again, the minister has indicated in his second reading speech:

Such support or resources could include, but would not be limited to, property that is tangible or intangible, currency, monetary instruments or financial services, false documentation provided by corrupt officials, equipment, facilities or transportation.

Fourthly, the bill will introduce a new aggravated offence in the Migration Act for people smuggling involving exploitation, or danger of death or serious harm. The offence will apply to people-smuggling ventures to Australia.

Fifthly, the bill proposes to extend the application of the higher mandatory minimum penalty to the new aggravated people-smuggling offence involving exploitation, or danger of death or serious harm. And finally, the bill also proposes to extend the application of the higher mandatory minimum penalty to persons who are convicted of multiple aggravated people-smuggling offences in the same hearing.

These are all very commendable amendments and there is no doubt at all that Australia’s laws need to be strengthened to take account of the unprecedented number of illegal boat arrivals of people who have been shipped to Australia by unscrupulous and uncaring people smugglers. However, having acknowledged the need to strengthen Australia’s laws, it is now appropriate to ask the question and to examine the reasons why there has been such a dramatic increase in illegal boat people arriving in Australia since the Rudd Labor government was elected to office.

Following last night’s budget, why has it been necessary for the Rudd government to increase its spending on Australia’s border protection so dramatically? Again, in his speech the minister sought to hide behind the alleged push factors by referring to conflicts and turmoil in Afghanistan, the Middle East and Sri Lanka. He said that these are the driving reasons as to why there has been a global surge in people smuggling. Consistent with his performance to date in this portfolio, the minister continues to fail to admit that it is in fact the pull factors, not the push factors, that he and the Rudd government alone have created that are the real reason we have seen an increase in the unprecedented number of illegal boat arrivals coming to Australia.

Have you noticed that when anything goes wrong on the Rudd government’s watch it is always someone else’s fault? Mr Rudd is a gutless wonder; he is spineless—he has no backbone. If he were a true leader, he would stand up and take responsibility for his failed border protection policies. As I said yesterday, no wonder there are rumours circulating of a Gillard/Emerson ticket. Gillard and Emerson must be rubbing their hands in glee, watching Mr Rudd slip and slide down the little slope that he is now on. If things get much worse, who wonders whether or not Mr Rudd will be replaced?

In terms of the failure of their policies, let us just reaffirm for the Australian people a number of other Rudd government failings to accept responsibility and their blaming of someone else. What about the failed insulation scheme? This has now cost Australian taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. But on top of that it has tragically claimed four innocent lives to date, and there is a complete failure by those on the other side to take responsibility for it.

We all now know, of course, of the revelation in the Weekend Australian that officials in the Prime Minister’s and Peter Garrett’s departments assessed the risk of death or injury of the program to be extreme three times in the three months before the four young workers were killed. Yet, despite the irrefutable evidence of Rudd Labor’s mismanagement and incompetence, Rudd Labor continue to blame everybody else but themselves. Then we go back to the current legislation, which they tell the Australian people is designed to strengthen Australia’s border protection regime. And it is, but the problem is that the government are the reason behind why we now need this legislation. If they had not touched the Howard government’s strong border protection policies, we would not be here today in this chamber debating the need for the additional measures to assist our border protection.

When it comes to the failure of their border protection policies, Rudd Labor are always full of excuses. It is always the push factors coming from overseas; it is never the pull factors. But the bad news now is that there is so much on the record—and it is not just coming from this side of the chamber—that refutes the claims made by the Rudd Labor government. As the previous speaker, Senator Humphries, stated, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has stated that push factors have been easing in Afghanistan and Sri Lanka, providing increasing opportunities for those previously seeking asylum to return home. But Labor cannot admit this. They will not admit it, as it will undermine their push to have Australians believe that global push factors are the reason that the boats continue to arrive here.

It is not only the United Nations commissioner who has commented. You will also recall, Mr Acting Deputy President Hutchins—in fact, you will recall them well—the comments from Dr Palitha Kohona, Sri Lanka’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, who said on the ABC’s Lateline program—not this year, but in November 2009:

I think this talk about the push factor is an over-exaggeration. If there were, as I said, a push factor, why didn’t they go across to India which is so close by, 22 miles away from Sri Lanka? Instead they head all the way to Australia. There must be another reason than simple push factor here.

There is another reason, and it is sitting across from me in the chamber: the good minister Senator Chris Evans from Western Australia.

Most Australians believe the influx of illegal immigrants is due to the widely publicised invitation that the Rudd government extended to people smugglers after the election in 2007. The people smugglers saw Australia go from a very tough place to get to—in fact, under the Howard government, the boats had stopped arriving—to having the red carpet thrown down for them and the Rudd government saying, ‘Come on down; the Rudd government have invited you here.’ The people smugglers now know—and, again, this is because of the Rudd government’s policy failures—that so long as their boats carrying illegal immigrants can get within about 200 kilometres of Christmas Island, they can make a phone call to the Australian Navy, claim that their boat is sinking and, guess what, the Rudd government are there to welcome them into Australia.

Soon after that, what do the Rudd government then give them? We all know, based on what they gave those on the Oceanic Viking, that it is an endless list of handouts that the Rudd government give to illegal people, handouts that the pensioners and the mums and dads in Australia must only wish that they had access to as well. What is Mr Rudd’s response to this influx of illegal immigrants? His response was:

We believe that we have got the balance of the policy right …

You have got to be kidding me. I say to the minister: ‘What do you say, Minister, to those people who have sat in refugee camps, who have done the right thing by Australia, who have done the right thing by the United Nations and who have sat in those camps year after year, waiting their turn and wanting to come to this country the right way? What do you say to them every time another boatload of unlawful immigrants arrives?’ You say, ‘Too bad mate; really sorry but there is no place for you because under our policies we allow queue jumpers into Australia.’ Minister, that is not good enough and it is certainly not fair to those people who are doing the right thing in the United Nations refugee camps.

Mr Rudd’s election promise to Australians that he would keep our borders safe was nothing more and nothing less than hypocritical rhetoric. It is a little bit like the promise he made to Australians prior to the 2007 election that he was an economic conservative. We all now know that that was blatantly untrue. If Mr Rudd and his minister honestly believe that the legislation that we are debating today is actually going to protect our borders, based on their current record, they are in absolute denial. We have all known for several months that the number of illegal arrivals from Sri Lanka has been declining, but the government refuse to acknowledge this as, once again, this undermines their spin that it is all about global push factors.

Labor’s policy solution to the increasing number of boat arrivals was to just increase the capacity of Christmas Island. There is a policy solution for you: we acknowledge that they are on their way; we will do nothing about actually stopping it, but what we will do is increase the capacity of Christmas Island. But, hold on, there is no more capacity at Christmas Island. So what did they do? The minister said, ‘Well, the good news is that there is another base that we can open in Derby in Western Australia’—his home state—‘and we will put the overflow of the asylum seekers there.’ That has gone down very well with the people smugglers, because they now know that when these bases actually reach capacity all the Labor government will do is just open another one. They are saying, ‘Come on down’ yet again.

As the previous speaker, Senator Humphries, outlined, when the coalition were in government we were given a problem, and the minister is right in acknowledging that we did have a number of illegal arrivals on our watch—we did. The difference between us and Labor, however, is that we saw that there was a problem. We acknowledged that tough decisions needed to be made to ensure that Australia’s borders were protected. So what did we do? We took tough policy measures. We had a problem, it was reflected in the number of boat arrivals, we put in tough policy measures, and what was the outcome? We reduced the boats to nil. That is the gift that the coalition government gave the Labor government when they took office. We gave them a solution. The Labor Party, as they do with most gifts they are given, looked at the solution and said, ‘How can we make a mess of it?’ That was very easy. All they needed to do was to make some very weak policy decisions to wind back the tough measures that the coalition had put in place. And guess what? All bets were off and the people smugglers were back in business.

Tony Abbott, our leader, is correct when he says that people are entitled to think that the Prime Minister has dudded them when he assured them that Australia’s border security would be safeguarded by his government. As with everything that came out of the mouth of the now Prime Minister prior to the 2007 election, that was nothing more and nothing less than Ruddspeak for ‘I want your vote and I will do and say anything to get it’.

The actions of the people smugglers are well and truly speaking louder than any of the policies that Labor have implemented. Labor’s failure to control our borders, and it is a failure, means that Australians are no longer in charge of deciding who comes lawfully to this country and under what circumstances they will come. It is a responsibility which the Rudd government have gladly abrogated and it is a responsibility that they should be ashamed of abrogating. Notwithstanding the amendments proposed in this current legislation, Mr Rudd and his government have an appalling record in relation to Australia’s border security and their lack of strong, decisive action continues to confirm that Rudd Labor are failing to protect our borders.