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

Thank you very much. I appreciate that, Senator Farrell. I know Senator Farrell's capacity for numbers and I would always defer to him on that particular element. But surely the circumstances from post Second World War Europe, Australia and Asia have changed such that it is time that we revisit that entire situation.

I look at what the Howard government implemented by way of finding its solution. The first measure of course was temporary protection visas, to give that level of protection to those people until such time as conditions in their home countries were such that they could safely be returned. That is something that should never, ever have been discontinued. On the Nauru solution, we hear that bleatings of Senator Carr and others saying that it never worked. The point was that it took the oxygen away from the people-smugglers. The people-smugglers could not advertise in their evil ways in Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Iraq and other places that people coming to Australia would get to Australia. That was the point of Nauru, and it worked. It is interesting that Nauru was run by Australians. It would be most interesting to run a poll of people who have been found to be not genuine refugees: would they like to go to Malaysia under Malaysian manage­ment or would they like to go to Nauru to a facility under Australian management? It would be most interesting to see what the outcome would be.

The other thing we did under the Howard government was forge a strong, positive relationship with Indonesia. Think back to the tsunami when this country sent $1 billion to the people of Indonesia at a time when their Islamic brothers in the United Arab Emirates could only come up with $1 million—and only when it was shamed afterwards did Saudi Arabia kick the can to some very limited effect. What we see in this country now in the circumstances of our relationship with Indonesia, which I will not dwell on today, is a very upset relationship with that country. What level of cooperation is Australia likely to get with the government of Indonesia at the moment on matters associated with asylum seekers and border protection given the fact that we treated them so harshly in the months of June and July this year?

The Howard government eliminated the pull factors. Even Minister Bowen has accepted at the moment that what we have done in this country is create those pull factors and we are going to continue to see an increase in the numbers to come. Then Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs Philip Ruddock said the safest thing to do was to keep people off the boats. This government has failed. This government is unable to protect Australia's borders. It must go.