Guy Barnett (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Chairman of the Scrutiny of Government Waste Committee) Share this | Hansard source

’Borrowed money’, says Senator Williams, and he is quite right. It is borrowed—as confirmed in the federal budget last night—to the extent of $100 million a day, $700 million a week, to pay for the reckless spending of the Rudd Labor government. It is shambolic. It is disgraceful. The government feel as though they have been forced onto the backfoot to pull out another billion dollars of taxpayers’ money to try to rectify a system which they have broken, which they muffed, which they stuffed, and that is what that money is being used for. That is taxpayers’ money, that is money that is being borrowed, and that confirms again that the system is out of control. I want to put on the record that the coalition will be digging deeper into these matters at Senate estimates in the weeks ahead, to make sure that we get to the bottom of it as to why these problems occurred and why we are in a pickle at the moment in terms of border mismanagement and maladministration.

We were advised yesterday that the Rudd government have decided to spend $1.2 million to house 79 asylum seekers in a four-star hotel in Brisbane, and that is frankly a consequence of the government’s failed border protection measures and policies. That is the bottom line. That is why those asylum seekers are there. If the government had proper policies in place, like we had under the previous government, they would not be in this pickle and they would not be causing Australians to borrow that extra money to spend in this way. Of course the neighbours are concerned; why wouldn’t they be? They have expressed their concerns publicly, and I hope that there will be coordination and liaison between the relevant authorities, the local police and the people in that community. This is, in fact, occurring in Treasurer Wayne Swan’s own electorate in Brisbane. The government are now paying $179 per night because there is no room left at Christmas Island.

We had another government backflip not long ago with respect to offshore processing. They slammed their hand on the desk and said, ‘We will have offshore processing.’ They were so adamant that they would continue to do this, and yet there was another backflip just months ago. That is another result of their failed border protection policies.

Let us have a look at the facts and the figures. Since Kevin Rudd started rolling back the strong border protection regime that he inherited from the coalition, 122 boats have arrived carrying 5,624 people. Apparently yesterday two more boats arrived, taking the total for the year to 54. I am advised that as at the same time last year, only 12 boats had arrived. It appears to me that the boats keep on coming. The report that I referred to earlier, the report of the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee—which was tabled just a week or so ago—says, on page 2, that as at 3 May 2010:

… there had been 92 unauthorised boat arrivals carrying approximately 4,300 people (including crew) during 2009-10.

There is a reference on that page that refers to some research undertaken by the Parliamentary Library, whom I want to commend for their research and diligence. I thank them for that and for the tremendous work that they do for the members and senators in this place. The report goes on:

In 2008-09, there were 23 vessels carrying 1033 people, while in 2007-08 there were three vessels carrying 25 asylum seekers.

You can see that the numbers are increasing fast and vigorously. Under the coalition, the average number of boats per year was about three.