John Faulkner (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Since the Keating government was in office I have spoken in scores of Senate debates about the response of Australian governments to asylum seekers arriving by boat. Over the years these debates have become less and less edifying. More and more these debates are driven by politics, not policy. But no-one inside or outside this parliament can fail to be affected by the human tragedy we witnessed again last week or fail to be moved by the toll of human lives lost since the sinking of SIEVX in 2001.

The truth is that we will never know precisely how many lives of asylum seekers coming to Australia have been lost over the years. We will not even know how many vessels may have been lost prior to detection. We know of the 353 people who died on SIEVX; the five lives lost on board SIEV36; the 12 who perished on SIEV69; the five who, we believe, died on board SIEV143; and the up to 50 lives lost when SIEV221 crashed into Christmas Island.

I do note that Alexander Downer has decided that the appropriate reaction to last week's tragedy is to try to settle a few old political scores. He has found inaccuracy to be no impediment. In today's Adelaide Advertiser, Alexander Downer makes an extraordinary claim:

… vile accusations made against the Australian Government in 2001 that it had deliberately allowed over 300 people to drown when … SIEV X sank.

According to him, the 'vile' accusers are: the Greens, Tony Kevin, Margot Kingston, the Fairfax press, former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, Senator Jacinta Collins and me. Suffice to say, Mr Downer is egregiously wrong.

I commend the report of the Senate Select Committee on a Certain Maritime Incident, chapters 8 and 9, pages 195 to 290, for those who are actually interested in a factual account of the publicly available evidence surrounding the sinking of SIEVX. Surely no-one believes that any government would deliberately allow asylum seekers to drown at sea—not in the case of SIEVX, not in the case of SIEV36, SIEV69, SIEV143, SIEV221 or any other suspected illegal entry vessel either. But I also hope there is no-one who would diminish the Senate's critically important role as a house of scrutiny. During the Senate Select Committee on a Certain Maritime Incident inquiry we saw the Senate at its best. So, for the record, I never have and I never will resile from asking hard questions of government officials and agencies about such matters and I hope that all other senators in the chamber apply the same principle, regardless of whether we have a Labor or non-Labor government in office. That is an important principle and I hope that all senators stand by it. (Time expired)