Judith Adams (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to also take note of answers given by Minister Carr. Senator Marshall has just made comments about us calling asylum seekers queue jumpers. Senator Marshall should cast his mind back. The current foreign minister, when he was Prime Minister, called them exactly that. He referred to asylum seekers as queue jumpers. The federal government seems to have discarded their immigration policy by allowing more than 100 people intercepted near Ashmore Reef to be taken straight to the Australian mainland. What is going on? This was never to happen. They were supposed to go to Christmas Island to be processed. I wonder what signal this is going to send. More and more people will get to Ashmore Reef knowing that they are going to jump Christmas Island and go straight to the mainland. Where have they been taken? We are not privy to that.

This change seems to have come after pressure from the police as a result of their difficulties in trying to contain outbreaks of unrest and violence on Christmas Island. They have done their best, and I really congratulate them on what they have done. But I guess it comes to a stage when you have too many people there and a too small number of police to deal with them and to try to protect the community of Christmas Island. The people of Christmas Island are in their turn becoming very agitated and upset about having detainees breaking out into their community. It now seems that it is too dangerous to put more detainees on Christmas Island, so they will be coming straight to the mainland.

The coalition is opposed to processing refugees on the mainland of Australia. Christmas Island was excised for immigration purposes means. People now have to be processed within 90 days. The problem is that now they will be able to have their cases heard by an independent refugee tribunal and have unfettered access to courts of appeal. This means that no-one will be able to be sent back to where they came from.

There also seems to be a problem with a backdown on asylum seeker processing protocols. The electric fencing on Christmas Island around the high security detention centre has been switched on, in what seems to be a desperate attempt to bring the situation under control. The government is now considering releasing thousands of asylum seekers who are in detention while their claims are being finalised. The mechanisms for doing this would include a new visa category for those who have been identified as genuine refugees and who are awaiting a security clearance.

The security and safety of communities is a mounting issue, with communities up in arms about their own personal safety when refugees break out and riot and in those communities where future facilities are planned. I am a Western Australian senator. My colleagues have mentioned Northam. I live 60 kilometres from Northam. People have been told by the department of immigration that there is, as Senator Back said, going to be a facility built three kilometres from the town. That facility will house 1,500 male detainees. Our biggest prisons in WA have 900 people or so. How one would keep 1,500 male detainees in a facility near a town like Northam we really do not know.

I, Senator Cash and the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Julie Bishop, were at a community meeting in Northam addressed by the immigration department—not the minister; he had been in Perth, but he certainly did not go to Northam. The agitation shown by the people living near and around the site was very sad to see. Their properties are going to lose value. They are certainly not very happy about what is happening. However, the process has been stalled in Northam. It is never going to be ready. The dongas are going to need to be refurbished. There is no power. Water is going to be difficult. Sewerage is not in place. So there is no way that the Northam facility is going to be ready. Six-hundred detainees were supposed to be on that site by the end of this month. That is certainly not going to happen. Another 500 were supposed to be on the site by June or July 2011. Goodness me! That is not going to happen. What sort of planning is this? I feel very sorry for the people of Northam. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.