Arthur Sinodinos (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I think the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Senator Bob Carr, is right. You cannot have a situation where the number of unauthorised boat arrivals continues to rise in this way, and we do need to find a set of sustainable solutions. This crisis has been going on for some time. Without going into the whole history of this debate, it is true to say to the point that the previous speaker made about having a confusing debate about push and pull factors, the fact is that in 2009 the Australian Federal Police advised the government that changes to the legislation had the effect of encouraging people who might otherwise look elsewhere again to look at Australia. In other words: yes, there are push factors in the world—there are a lot of refugees in the world and we all accept that. That is why we have one of the most generous refugee and humanitarian programs in the world. But the essence of the problem was changes to legislation.

Of course, you could say it was all well meant and we were trying to find a better balance. Senator Evans tried to run this at question time, but the fact is people did not take into account the impact that would have on the attractiveness of Australia as a destination. Australia is a very attractive place for people wanting to leave their countries and we know that. We have a generous immigration program, but we lose confidence and support from the community for the program if it looks like we cannot control our borders. That is a fundamental reality.

Labor for a decade in opposition tried to think of fudges on this issue, because they believed it was just a political issue. It is a policy issue. There is a part of the Australian electorate, a very big part of the Australian electorate, which believes a core business of government is to enforce strong borders. If we are talking about evidence based policy making, that old Kevin Rudd mantra, 2009 was a time when that advice from the Australian Federal Police should have got people in government thinking, 'Maybe there's a problem and let's monitor it.' Kevin Rudd was caught unawares by what happened in late 2009, when the Oceanic Viking and others came on the horizon, as you may recall. He had to zig and zag, change policy, try and make policy on the run, enlist the support of President Yudhoyono in order to achieve some deterrents. Then we had what happened after that, once Rudd was removed and Julia Gillard tried to have the East Timor processing centre. Then we had the Malaysia solution and so on and so forth.

The reality is that if we are talking about pure political responses, what the government should have done in 2009-10 was to move immediately to neutralise the potential attacks on it by adopting a full suite of measures at that stage. If it had done that then by now we would have had field evidence of whether those measures had worked and more was needed. Instead the government had to be dragged kicking and screaming into everything it did. In the end it had to outsource the actual policy making to the Houston committee to come out with a report which, nuanced as it was, essentially said we need the full suite of measures. Yes, Houston also talked about Malaysia and all the other stuff we have debated in this chamber, but essentially what the Houston committee said was we need the full suite of measures and a comprehensive approach.

I support a comprehensive approach. I supported it from day one, in the early 2000s when I was involved in this process in the Prime Minister's office. The view we took the day that the Tampa detoured from Indonesia towards Australia was that there was no way any self-respecting Australian government would survive if it just simply laid out the welcome mat to everybody who could divert a ship into Australian waters and take it from there. We had to take a stand and we took a stand then. It was a tough stand, but sometimes you have to take a tough stand up-front in order to deter activity which will cause more pain and injury down the track. What we are trying to do here is send a message. Luckily between the coalition and the government we are sending the message that we want to deter people getting on leaky boats and risking their lives.

There is more to be done. Unfortunately this is one of those sagas where over time the government will have to do more and more. That is not because the opposition has somehow been dragging its feet. We have encouraged the adoption of a full suite of policies from day one. The art of statesmanship is the capacity to grasp a problem before it becomes a crisis, so you do not look as if you are always being dragged kicking and screaming to deal with a crisis. I urge the government to do everything it can to adopt a full suite of measures sooner rather than later and come back to the opposition and say, 'We've done X, Y and Z; now help us on A, B and C.'

Question agreed to.