Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is interesting to be told by Senator Cameron that Western Australia is the lowest common denominator—and I thank him. He speaks about the dog whistle. In my veterinary days the dog whistle was used to round up the sheep. It would appear that the rounding up of the sheep is definitely needed on the other side of this chamber. What a debacle and what a disgusting situation. What an effort by the minister, Minister Carr, in trying to respond to Senator Cash’s question on asylum seekers earlier this afternoon. In his efforts, he damned his own minister, Minister Bowen. From his own words he damned Minister Bowen with his claim that there was calmness.

To follow on from Senator Cameron’s comments—and it is a shame that he is leaving the chamber—we now have three classes of asylum seekers who are trying to get to Australia. The first and, unfortunately, the lowest on the queue are those who are legitimate and whose applications have been approved. They are rotting in camps in Africa and elsewhere—and long will they rot whilst those who are jumping the queue manage to do so. Until last week, we had only one other group and those were queue jumpers. But last week on Christmas Island we actually divided them into two groups. There are those who are prepared to break the law, those who are prepared to destroy Australian property and those who are prepared to actually put at risk those who are supposed to be caring for them. The reward they get, of course, is to be brought quickly to the Australian mainland. The third group—those fools who stayed around acting responsibly, as they were supposed to, in detention—sat there and now they have nowhere to go. We all wondered about this situation the night after the law-breakers’ actions. They were not deported from this country, told that their opportunity to come here had now been denied because of their willingness to break our laws, destroy property and put at risk the people who were looking after them. On the second night, all of those who had initially said, ‘We will sit back; we will wait for Australian law to take its course.’ turned around and said, ‘The only way for us to get to the mainland is in fact to repeat their efforts.’ So we saw the burning of facilities. We saw the gentleman who controls the recreation centre on Christmas Island being approached at three in the morning to see whether he could open that facility so that those who did not participate in this law breaking could be safe while the law-breakers continued on their way. What is going to happen to them, we can only wait to see.

I will now turn to the town of Northam, where I was a resident through the decades of the 1970s and the 1980s. Like most young kids who went through cadets, I spent a lot of time at the old Northam army barracks. It is three kilometres out of town and it is right on the Great Eastern Highway to the eastern states. I call on Minister Bowen, whilst he still is the minister, to completely remove any plan to construct a facility in Northam for 1,500 young men. This facility will be three kilometres out from a very, very quiet residential wheat belt town. If the government cannot control asylum seekers on an island, what chance have they got of controlling them in and around Northam? On an island, asylum seekers have nowhere else to go. As Senator Carr said, they will eventually be rounded up—of course they will. As soon as you need a feed, you tend to go back to where the food is available.

But in Northam, if anybody should break out of that camp—and they could break out of it at any time once it is constructed—it will be impossible to protect either the 1,500 people inside the detention camp or the wider community outside it. It will be impossible to do so. I call on the minister, whilst he is still the minister, to announce that he is not going to proceed with that particular program—although he should possibly do that for families. Premier Barnett, very early in the process, said, ‘Limited numbers of people, limited numbers of families and in consultation with the state government and local communities, and we will see what can be done.’ Was there consultation by Minister Bowen? No, there was not. Is there an attempt to relocate families into that area? Knowing Northam as I do and knowing that very camp, which was in fact a refugee camp when it ceased being an army barracks after the Second World War, there has been tremendous assimilation within that community. But 1,500 young men will not work. It did not work on Christmas Island; it will not work in Northam. It is absolutely essential that this minister resigns and that the Prime Minister takes control of the issue. If she cannot control our borders then she too should resign so that we can put a government back into place that will.