Alan Ferguson (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have received a letter from Senator Parry proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the Senate for discussion, namely:

The Rudd Government’s inability to manage Australia’s border security.

I call upon those senators who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of senators required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

I understand that informal arrangements have been made to allocate specific times to each of the speakers in today’s debate. With the concurrence of the Senate, I shall ask the clerks to set the clock accordingly.

Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It has oft been said that a country that loses control of its borders is no longer a country. It has been said that a country that loses control of its borders loses control of its destiny. I regret to say, standing here in the Senate chamber today, that the Rudd government is rapidly losing control of Australia’s borders. I have no doubt that in this debate there will be attempts by the Labor Party to obfuscate and to hide the real crisis that is appearing on Australia’s doorsteps. There will be much talk about legal and illegal asylum seekers. The Labor Party would have you believe that those who arrive here with a valid visa and then seek asylum are exactly the same as those that arrive here illegally. They are prepared to break the law to get into our country, fleeing countries of safe haven. There is no question that we have been seeing more asylum seekers entering Australia illegally since this government started winding back the policies that served Australia so well.

Once again, it will come as no surprise to you, Mr Deputy President, but it may surprise those who are listening to this broadcast, that once again the Rudd government has broken promises. In an interview just before the last election, on 23 November 2007, the very day before the last federal election, Mr Rudd made a number of promises that have since been broken. In that interview, with representatives of the Australian newspaper, he said we need:

… effective laws, effective detention arrangements, effective deterrent posture vis-a-vis vessels approaching Australian waters.

He said:

You’d turn them back. You cannot have anything that is orderly if you allow people who do not have a lawful visa in this country to roam free.

He was going to turn the boats back. But what he has done is to turn back the clock to a time before 2002 when the Howard government strengthened our border protection laws. He turned back the clock to a time when thousands of people were entering this country illegally. The consequences of his irrational, ill-considered and, quite frankly, cruel policies are there for all of us to see. Since Mr Rudd was elected, 1,464 illegal arrivals have entered Australian territorial waters. In 13 months we have had 31 boats. There is no sign that they are stopping. There is no sign that they are dissuaded at all by our border protection policies. The only sign we have is that they are being encouraged by the winding back of the laws. They are being encouraged to hop into dangerous leaky boats by people smugglers in Indonesia, who are going around saying, ‘We can get you into Australia, life will be better there and you will be out in the community within a couple of months.’

The laws that the Rudd government have wound back—the legislation that it has repealed or changed—go to the very heart of our border security. It scrapped the Pacific solution, which many people did not agree with but which, frankly, offered an extreme deterrent to those who sought to enter our country illegally. It has abolished temporary protection visas. It has abolished the 45-day rule, which was designed to stop rorts of our Medicare and our social security system. The Rudd government has cut the budget for the Department of Immigration and Citizenship by $124 million and it has cut 600 staff over the last 18 months. This is a shameful record. The government has abolished the debt which acted as a deterrent to those who were found to have claimed fraudulently, illegally and without any basis to have refugee status or asylum. It acted as a deterrent for them to try again to get into this country. I am ashamed to say that we are now getting people who were rejected under the Howard government’s legislation from entering this country illegally trying to again enter. Why wouldn’t they? They get put up on Christmas Island. They get fed and clothed. The conditions there are much better than they have perhaps experienced from where they have come.

The Rudd government will have you believe that these people are impoverished and fleeing some sort of persecution. They may have indeed fled persecution from their original domicile or residence, but more often than not they have been through one, two and sometimes three other countries. They have paid along the way thousands—if not tens of thousands—of dollars to get into a leaky boat to come to Australia. Just yesterday I heard from one of the senators on the government benches that these people hopped into these boats and did not actually know where they were going to. They just knew they had to get somewhere safer than a hotel in downtown Jakarta or a village in Indonesia, where their lives are not under threat. They are paying hard cash to cruel people smugglers to get to Australia because they know that when they get here they are going to get a better life. They know they are going to get it because there is very little penalty attached to it.

This government is losing control of the battle against illegal arrivals. As I said, 1,464 people have arrived illegally in this country since the Rudd government started to change the laws. It is a record which no country should be proud of. It is a record that stands in stark contrast to the humanitarian efforts that Australia has typically represented on the world stage in dealing with those people who seek through the appropriate channels genuine humanitarian or refugee assistance. As I understand it, on the refugee scale Australia ranks third in the world in accepting those who are displaced. We had a prudent, effective and very sensible approach to migration and humanitarian assistance to refugees in this country. Every single one of these 1,464 illegal arrivals in this country that is granted asylum, refugee status or permanent residence in Australia is taking the place of those people who seek to do the right thing and are waiting in accordance with the United Nations mandated requirements or are complying with Australia’s own visa and migration requirements. No other conclusion can be drawn by a sensible and considered analysis of what has transpired. This government has changed the laws. It has wound back the clock. As a consequence of this, in less than 13 months, more illegal arrivals have bobbed up in Australian waters than in the previous six years since the Howard government enforced and strengthened the integrity of Australia’s borders.

I jump back to my opening remarks. A country that loses control of its borders is no longer a country. A country that loses control of its borders is no longer in control of its destiny. The very question of the integrity of the future of our nation resides in making our borders strong and secure and in ensuring that we decide who will come to this country and who will be allowed to stay here. It is not humanitarian, fair or equitable, and it is completely unrealistic, to expect that you can soften our borders, you can soften our laws and you can wind back the clock and not be implicitly supporting those who seek to breach our border security. Mark my words: there are people smugglers that are plying their trade up and down the coast, looking for people to arrive in our country and to enter Australian waters illegally. They are making a grotesque profit by putting people’s lives at risk and making promises based on the headlines in the paper which are directly related to the softening of these border protection programs. This is not a question of Australia’s humanitarian efforts. It is not a question of Australia not doing its bit. It is a question of Australia maintaining its integrity and sending a very strong message to people smugglers that Australia is not open for their business. (Time expired)

Annette Hurley (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Rudd Labor government are taking all possible steps to ensure the integrity of our border, but we are certainly winding back some of the more punitive aspects of the Howard government’s border protection policies and its Pacific solution. The Rudd Labor government has taken strong steps since it came into power in 2007 to combat people-smuggling, principally by regional engagement and cooperation, including through the International Organisation for Migration. It has taken significant steps to enhance border protection at both sea and air ports and to ensure that the integrity of our borders are protected.

Where the Rudd Labor government differs from the Howard government is in not assigning blame to the people who come to our border seeking protection. Senator Bernardi referred repeatedly to ‘illegals’. I take exception to that description of people who come to our borders by boat. They are often people who are quite legitimately seeking protection as refugees. I believe it is wrong and extremely misleading to refer to them as ‘illegals’, and it does indeed hark back to the former attitude of border protection and the Pacific solution policy. Senator Bernardi referred to the way that the Rudd government had ended the Pacific solution policy, under which asylum seekers—not ‘illegals’; ‘asylum seekers’—who arrived offshore were processed overseas.

The Rudd government also abolished the temporary protection visa for asylum seekers who arrived unauthorised, which was much hated, and announced reforms to the policy of mandatory immigration detention for unauthorised arrival. The Rudd Labor government has people detained only for as long as necessary to perform initial health, identity and security checks. The checks are in place. The protections are in place. It is just that they are in place in a way that is more humane and that allows for the fact that the people seeking protection on our borders might indeed be trying to seek, as Senator Bernardi said, a better world and a better life. And who amongst the opposition would blame anyone for seeking a better world, a better life?

Many of the people opposite have come from immigrant backgrounds. I do not accuse anyone in the opposition of any racism or prejudice against immigrants, because I know that most if not all of the opposition members, certainly in this place, support what immigrants have done for Australia and the backgrounds they have brought to Australia, which have improved and enhanced life in Australia and the success that Australia has been able to enjoy. But I think that, by overenthusiastically adopting the border protection package and the Pacific solution, the former Liberal government fostered a culture which was harsh and unreasonable in terms of its attitude to asylum seekers in our country.

Nowhere is that clearer than in the attitude towards detention debt. This was a means by which, having allowed people to stay permanently in our country, the then government continued to punish immigrants to our country by allowing the threat of debt to hang over them. This was indeed very difficult for many people. In my office I dealt with several people in exactly this situation. One was an Iraqi citizen who was granted asylum on his arrival. But, after a period of detention, because he had come through Germany and was deemed to have come through another country that might have given him asylum, this person, who was eventually allowed to stay in Australia because of his pre-eminent expertise in chess, was asked to repay a debt totalling just over $150,000. This person, although he immediately got jobs in Australia and participated in the life and culture of Australia, and was very happy to be here, was overshadowed by this enormous debt of $152,000, which he was unable to get waived. He spoke to lawyers through his contacts in the Chess Federation but felt that he could not get married, he could not start his life in Australia with this debt hanging over his head. Through my office I did take his case up, but this poor man felt that he could not make a life at all. Before the Rudd government was able to come in and abolish this detention debt, he declared himself bankrupt and has had to start all over again.

Another person who came to my attention, through the Blackwood Hills Circle of Friends in Adelaide, was a Sri Lankan person who was given a bill of $187,000 for his detention. This person arrived in Australia as an unauthorised air arrival in August 2005. He was granted a bridging visa—removal pending—and released from detention. But in February 2007 this Sri Lankan refugee lodged an application for a permanent protection visa and was granted it in December 2007. Until very recently he was still uncertain as to whether he would have to pay that money back. Even though he had been living in Australia with friends and was prepared to undertake an active part in Australian life, he was nevertheless prevented from fully participating by the, again, enormous debt hanging over his head.

It is clear, even though we still have the opposition claiming that it is not so, that most of those unauthorised arrivals did get refugee status—they were recognised as genuine refugees. Yet some in the opposition continue to propagate the misleading impression that people who have come to Australian shores are illegal refugees who are sent back. It was the Howard government that in fact said to people, ‘Go back home and apply again.’ We heard a senator here today decrying the fact that someone is trying again, when in fact that was something that was encouraged under the Howard government.

In view of the fact—and it has been repeated many times by all parties in this parliament—that we in Australia have benefited from immigration and from the children and grandchildren of the immigrants that we have seen in this country, it is hard for those of us who do believe strongly in the value of immigration, and those immigrants who take up citizenship, to see people in this place still decrying immigration. Governments in America, in Europe, in countries such as Italy and Greece and even in little Malta would laugh at the hysterical reaction to increasing numbers of people coming to Australia given the many, many thousands more people that they see coming to their shores.

The minister has said, and it is demonstrably true, that the latest wave of people seeking asylum in Australia is part of an international trend. These trends will continue from time to time, depending on what is happening around the world. Countries around the world have noticed an increase in people seeking asylum and people taking the most extreme measures to seek asylum, including coming to Australia by boat. The latest figures are not extreme at all. In 1999, there were 86 boat arrivals in Australia. We have something like a third of that number at the moment. It might increase or it might decrease. But we should not condone again the hysterical reaction of the government to that increase that saw the border protection policy and the Pacific solution. It demeans our country and it demeans the contribution of immigrants to this country. To call anyone who seeks asylum in this country an ‘illegal’ and talk again about queue-jumping is going back in time. It is a place that most people in Australia do not want to see us go back to. That is not the place that we want to go back to. I think that has been demonstrated very clearly by the general public reaction to the Rudd Labor government’s policies.

In the last few minutes I want to talk a little bit more about citizenship. I also want to congratulate the minister on the proposed changes to the citizenship laws. Once we do accept immigrants to this country we should encourage people to take out citizenship. That is something that we probably did not do enough in the wave of citizenship that came through after the Second World War. Clearly a number of people did take up citizenship and proved to be very valuable citizens. They did not have to pass through the hoops that were put in place, such as citizenship testing and English testing, in order to become citizens. We have measures in place now and I do support education in civic responsibility and in what it means to be an Australian citizen.

I am very pleased to see some changing in the period of time that permanent residents have to be in Australia before they are allowed to take up citizenship. I have one case that I am pursuing at the moment where a person is an actor and model and is out of Australia fairly frequently. He is clearly a successful person in modelling and gets contracts overseas fairly regularly. He has so far been prevented from taking out citizenship, even though he has an Australian wife and has been living in Australia as a permanent resident for eight years. I think that sort of case illustrates that we must not complicate our systems too much otherwise we miss out on accepting as citizens people who are going to be very valuable to our country. It is not only those persons themselves; it is their children and grandchildren. I do not need to repeat the stories of the immigrants and their children and grandchildren who have been extremely valuable to our country even when they have not completely complied with the rules when they have come here. Even back in the immigration wave after the Second World War people lied about where they came from and lied about their religion in order to get to Australia to have the better world and the better life Senator Cory Bernardi referred to. I do not think anyone would now complain about that wave of immigration after the Second World War because many of us—not me but many others in this parliament—are children or grandchildren of that wave of immigrants. But I think all of us value the contribution that those people made to Australia and I am sure we will value future contributions by migrants.

Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I cannot believe that we are back here discussing this issue of asylum seekers. The coalition moved a matter of public importance very similar to this only six months ago. They tried their very best to whip up fear, to whip up hysteria around refugees—desperate people seeking protection, seeking freedom, seeking our assistance. I just cannot get over how out of touch the opposition are on this issue. We have come so far. We have come out of the dark days; out of the dark old ages where we saw children locked in detention centres in the middle of the desert, where we saw young people so desperate for somebody to listen to them, for someone to see their desperation that they sewed their lipstick together. So dark were these days that people were so desperate that they did have to come on boats to seek our protection.

What has changed is government policy. What has changed is the will of the community and the belief in the community that we need to have compassion. What has not changed is people around the world still needing protection, people still fleeing persecution and war. In fact, we have seen an increase of that over the last few years, which obviously adds to the increase of people knocking on our door and asking for our protection.

It staggers me that the opposition want to continue to drag out these issues when we know that the Australian community will not stand for it, when we actually want to be a country of the fair go, when we want to be a nation that prides itself on compassion, on human rights, on justice. Yet clearly the opposition must be feeling so irrelevant in their position that the only thing that they can do to make themselves feel good, to add to their own self-assurance, is to attack those who are more vulnerable than themselves. That is what today’s debate is about; they are trying to make themselves feel a bit better. It is like the grumpy kid in the schoolyard, not having many friends anymore and thinking: ‘What will I do? I’ll go and pick on the small guy.’ That is exactly what the opposition are doing today. It is disgusting. It is gross. It is absolutely disgusting.

A term like ‘illegals’ is absolutely offensive. Not only is it offensive but it is completely inaccurate. It is actually not illegal to seek asylum in Australia. Australia has signed the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees that says people can seek asylum, it is not illegal and they should have their claims processed. They should not be demonised and they should not be punished for their mode of arrival or the claim that they are making. As a signatory to the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention this is something that Australia pledged to do; that we would act in the best interest of the global community and help those people who are seeking protection, knowing that we are pretty lucky here in Australia. We have a safe and stable country, and, despite the antics in our chambers of parliament, we actually get along quite well. Why would we not have a responsibility to share that with people who are vulnerable, who deserve our protection and who deserve that type of freedom as well? It is not illegal to seek asylum in Australia. I am getting sick and tired of hearing various voices from the coalition benches referring to innocent asylum seekers as ‘illegals’.

I do not know how many times this has been raised over and over again by members of the Australian Greens, members of the government, as well as various experts in the field, that advocating for harsher immigration policies—as the opposition tends to do, and this is becoming more frequent of late—does not stop desperate people fleeing war and persecution. Desperate people will seek freedom. Desperate people will do what it takes to ensure that they can give their children the best life possible. If that means jumping on a boat with some hope and desire that they will give their children a better future, that is what they will do. Members in this chamber need to have a good long think about what they would do in their position; if they had no other choice to give their children a future. Would you really care whether Australia had some policy written up on its website that said that it will charge you a debt for your immigration detention? No, of course not. It does not work like that. Desperate and vulnerable people fleeing war and persecution will do what it takes to give their children the best chance at life. Frankly, so they should. Every parent should do what it takes to give their child the best life possible. They should not be demonised for it. They should not be blamed for it.

This whole idea of whipping up fear and scaremongering and hysteria around the recent boat arrivals takes us back to the days when we used to lock children in detention in the middle of the desert. We know that is wrong. Let us not go back there. Let us not allow ourselves, as parliamentarians—as representatives of an amazing democratic country where we do have safety, where we do have stability—to debate these silly ideas of hysteria about something that is actually not there. Australia takes in hardly any refugees in comparison to comparable countries such as Canada. In fact, we have a responsibility to help those people who do apply. We should not be blaming innocent people for seeking protection.

It is fair to say that on all sides of politics we can agree that the people-smuggling trade is an appalling way to exploit innocent people who are in a desperate situation. The point at which we differ is at the role that Australia should be taking; it is not to punish those innocent people who have sought protection through those services but to help to combat the global rise of numbers of asylum seekers fleeing their homelands in search of a safe and peaceful environment.

That is where we should be expending our energies, not on punishing those people who arrive in Australian waters by boat. So the question I put to Senator Bernardi is: given what you say, Moses was a people smuggler by your definition but do we demonise him? Do we say that Moses was the lowest form of vile? No, of course we do not. We understand that desperate people do desperate things in order to seek protection and freedom. Australia has a really important role to play but we need to make sure we play the right role in helping to ease the numbers of asylum seekers around the world. As one of the wealthiest nations in our region, we need to provide positive support and not put our energies into whipping up fear and hatred. Instead of spending millions of dollars on pushing people back from our borders, we need to be thinking of innovative ways to create a safer, more humane pathway by which people can seek asylum. Simply demonising innocent people who are arriving in Australian waters by boat does not do that. It is simply for political gain.

It is time that some members in this chamber and in the other place stopped peddling a myth of fear around asylum seekers. We all need to recognise that the exploitation of innocent people through the trade of people-smuggling is not to be encouraged and that what we need to be doing is encouraging our neighbours, such as Indonesia, to sign the UN convention on the status of refugees, which would then allow them to recognise the need for these people to be protected. We need to be working with our neighbours to do these things, not simply pushing boats back and saying it is somebody else’s problem. If we espouse to be leaders in the global community, we need to take some responsibility for helping those desperate people around the world as well. Simply pushing them back out to sea and saying it is not our problem is just not good enough.

Language such as ‘queue jumpers’ and ‘illegal entrants’ whips up an unnecessary storm over those seeking asylum in Australia. Surely all of us here can recognise that when you are fleeing persecution or a war ravaged country you may not have the necessary means to apply for a visa to arrive in Australia lawfully. People who are desperate enough to jump on a boat in the vain hope of protection and safety for their children are not in a position to put in an application and wait year after year after year for a response. That is not the way it works. In fact, if some members of the opposition believe that is the way it is, I suggest that they take some study leave and go off to spend a few weeks in Afghanistan.

Nigel Scullion (NT, Country Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the matter of public importance, namely ‘the Rudd government’s inability to manage Australia’s border security’. There have been a couple of contributions to this debate today which I have found to be somewhat startling, and I will get to those in a moment. Clearly we have seen an increase in the numbers of people principally leaving ports in Indonesia and travelling to Australia. We know this is because there has been a change in policies by the current government. I remember Senator Hurley, in her contribution, saying that the government she represents was winding back policies that somehow were offensive. I would like to put that in another way. They are winding back policies that worked and prevented people from taking risks and putting their families’ lives at risk. That is not just an emotive statement. We know that many people have lost their lives. Many more that we would not even know of have lost their lives. All we know is that they have left port and simply not arrived in Australia. So those policies ensured that we minimised the opportunity of those people making that voyage. In fact, Senator Wong acknowledged in April this year that a range of asylum seekers from Afghanistan ‘intercepted in the last few days’ had left Afghanistan in the days of the Howard government.

That is the case, and I think it is important to reflect on the situation in Indonesia around that time. I remember hearing an interview with a refugee who was in Indonesia. He had been there for a number of years. He was bemoaning the fact that he had been assessed by the UNHCR, which was sponsored and paid for by the Australian government at the time to be able to assess individuals over there. He said it was taking so long that if it were possible to go to Australia directly by boat he would have done so. In the interview, they said, ‘Why haven’t you done so?’ He said, ‘Well, there are no boats going.’ The reason there were no boats going was of course the Pacific solution, and the outcome was not the outcome that the people smugglers desired as it had a real impact on the opportunities to traffic in human misery.

According to the UNHCR’s annual global trends, there are about 16 million refugees and asylum seekers around the world. As most people in this place have reflected, and nobody would disagree, many of those people are in dire circumstances. But we have had a lot of emotive discussion today about the circumstances as to whether someone is arriving lawfully or otherwise and whether or not they are queue jumpers. I think this is the most important aspect of this debate. Whilst the Greens senator who spoke previously has said that obviously we in this country are pretty small minded and small hearted, I note that per capita we take the second highest number of humanitarian refugees in the world. But the most important point is that, somehow, we are cruel.

Take people arriving by boat—for each person on that boat who will go through the process of seeking permanent residency in Australia and get it, one person will come off the humanitarian aid list. Let me talk for a moment about the sort of people who are on that list. People say there is no queue. Well, there is a queue and it is characterised by people from the Horn of Africa who have lived in a refugee camp for the last five or six years. One of them would be a woman whose day or month gets better because another one of her children dies and that is one mouth less to feed. People in those sorts of circumstances are the very highest priority and it is the responsibility of this government to prioritise who comes to this country. I think it is laughable to suggest that it be otherwise for those who come to this country in a vessel. Let me tell you that the convention of 1951 says that people shall seek refuge in the first country that they go to—so you do not leave Afghanistan and get on a plane to fly to Malaysia, then get on a ferry to get to Jakarta and then seek a fishing vessel to travel to Australia. If the very first place that you went to you were safe, that is what the convention encourages. It says that we do not encourage people to forum shop.

But for those on the other side who say we are all mean hearted on this side, just remember it is about two principal things: we do not want people to put their lives and their families’ lives at risk, and we also think that it is so important that we prioritise those 13,000-plus people who come to this country as humanitarian refugees as those who are in the most in need. And if you can envisage for a moment those circumstances, the worst possible circumstances, compared to somebody in a family who decides: ‘I can afford it. I’m going to leave. I’m safe now in another country, and in fact I travelled through several safe countries.’ Those are the sorts of issues that do need to be discouraged, and I do not think it is reasonable or fair to describe the coalition as people who are heartless and have not thought about those things.

There is a whole suite of scientific indicators that said back in 2000 that we had some 4,000 refugees. The previous government acted strongly to provide disincentives to those who wanted to come and forum shop and come around the long way to come here. We did that because we thought the people who were in refugee camps, particularly in the Horn of Africa and other places, were such a priority that they were the people who needed the most help, and so we helped those most in need. It made sense, and it was with a wide and Australian heart that we took that focused decision.

Of course as soon as those opposite came in they changed the policies. They said: ‘We’re abolishing the Pacific solution. In other words we’ll ignore the convention of 1951 and we’ll provide an end-game or an end-stop, so you can forum shop and you can come to Australia and we’ll hold you in Australia.’ Those numbers are increasing, but let me tell those who are listening: for every single person who comes that way, there is somebody in the most heinous circumstances in a refugee camp somewhere who does not come to Australia and does not get the help or the opportunities that they deserve. So all of the rhetoric from the other side about how heartless the coalition is is absolute rubbish, and it detracts from the facts of the matter—that is, that at the heart of the coalition’s policy it ensures that those most in need are helped.

Their principal policies abolished the Pacific Solution, they abolished the TPVs and they ended by returning the boats—we actually go back and pull them forward. We actually go and give them a hand to bring them in. Well that has increased the numbers of people who come to this country in a way that the convention never envisaged and never encouraged. And so the coalition stands proudly behind its policy of ensuring that those most in need of humanitarian aid get the opportunity to come to this country. (Time expired)

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to make a contribution to Senator Parry’s MPI too. The only thing that all members of this chamber could agree on is that this issue is very emotive. But it does sadden me to witness what happens on that side of the chamber when they get bored during general business. We have seen it; we have seen it for the last 12 or 18 months. They bring on MPIs about the reckless spending of the Rudd government on our stimulus packages. How reckless we were! We should be condemned because we took the initiative. We should be condemned because we tried to save jobs. We should be condemned because on Treasury figures 200,000—through you, Madam Acting Deputy President, to that lot over there—Australian jobs were saved. Week in, week out what do the hapless, leaderless opposition do over there with the assistance of the doormats? I tell you what they do: they bring up these nonsense MPIs—an absolutely ridiculous waste of the Senate’s precious time—to talk about us.

And then you know what happened? Out came the surveys. The majority of Australians supported the Rudd government’s decisive and quick action on our stimulus spending and saving jobs. So what do they do next? They sit there and they think, ‘The former member’—I am sorry, that was a Freudian slip: she is still the member for Curtin, but is the former opposition Treasurer. Her view of the world when the global financial crisis was confronting us was, ‘Let’s sit on our hands and see what happens first.’ Great policy. What do they do on that side? Move her aside. Then they bring out the big guns: Mr Turnbull and Mr Hockey. They say we should be backing off. That has all gone quiet now because they have egg over their faces. And if I can use Senator Boswell’s terminology, they have egg over their faces from head to toe. No answer? No, that is right. Sorry I had to remind you, through you, Madam Acting Deputy President.

So the next attack comes in the form of the Leader of the Opposition, the member for Wentworth, Mr Turnbull, saying to the crew over there: ‘Look, we’ve really absolutely stuffed that up. Let’s talk about individual contracts. That’s it! We’ll deflect the wonderful job that the Rudd Labor government’s doing on stimulus spending and saving jobs and saving the economy. We’ll talk about Work Choices. No, we won’t call it Work Choices. Sorry. Let’s not call it Work Choices. I think I mentioned Work Choices, but I think we got away with it. Let’s just call it workplace flexibility individual contracts.’ That lasted about three or four days. What a spectacular crash that was! ‘What do we do next?’ I would love to be a fly on the wall in the opposition party room. It must be like a scene from Sesame Street. ‘What happens next? Hello, let’s tug on the next emotive issue we can raise because we have absolutely mucked up our attack on the Rudd Labor government’s stimulus spending packages. We’ve absolutely mucked up again. Oops-a-daisy, we’ve mentioned individual workplace agreements and that didn’t work, so let’s yank on the Tampa chain; let’s have a grab at that.’

I will come to the MPI, but I do want to make my contribution as a first generation Australian. My parents are from war-torn Europe. They had the opportunity to come to Australia—they did not know each other; they met over here—to give not only themselves the opportunity for a wonderful life, but to also bring their children up in what I would say is God’s greatest country on this earth. What if we had those same views back then? While I am on it, I just want to keep touching on the opposition’s claims of policies, because there is so much emotion, but there are so many untruths.

I think Australia is a fantastic country. There is room for all of us, but there must be procedures. We agree with that. But let us look at where these asylum seekers are coming from. Through 2009, 1,181 of these irregular maritime arrivals—IMAs—have arrived in 22 vessels. In 2008, there were 161 arriving in seven vessels. Let us compare that with other countries around the world. I have figures here from 2008 which say that in Greece alone there were 15,300 IMAs. In Italy, there were 36,000. Remember that this year so far we have had 1,181—I am not detracting from that. In Spain, there were 13,400. One could argue that Greece, Italy and Spain would be wonderful places to relocate, if it were possible. So would Australia. We have to start using some sensibility in this argument. Those three countries are closer to where the majority of these asylum seekers are coming from.

Let us look at where they are coming from. It has been mentioned, but I would like to take the opportunity to reiterate for those opposite. I have a list here of where they are all coming from. There are Afghans, Iranians, Sri Lankans, Afghans, Iraqis, Iraqis, Afghans, Iranians, Sri Lankans—the list goes on and on. We know why these people are desperately trying to leave these war torn countries. Senator Scullion makes a good point: there are other war torn countries around the world. It is a lot easier to get to Australia by land-hopping through Asia, as we all know, than it is to jump on a rickety boat out of Africa and take your chances crossing the Indian Ocean. That must not go unchallenged.

It brings me to the opposition’s claims. Time is against me, unfortunately, because I would love the opportunity to spend most of my time on this, but I am constrained. These are the opposition’s claims. I opened the Saturday paper and read this. I could not believe it.  I thought, ‘No, I must still be in bed dreaming.’ Unfortunately, I was not; I was awake. Dr Stone, the opposition spokesperson on immigration and the member for Murray, had used some wonderful mathematics. She started doing a few calculations and thought: ‘Right, this is the latest scare tactic. This will get Australians jumping up and down. Let me throw out this ridiculous statement.’ She did. She got a run. That is fine. I think it just denigrates her position even more, but that is just my opinion. She said that Australia will be the recipient of 8,000 to 10,000 IMAs each year in coming years. She just used the figures for how many had come for a couple of months and then multiplied that by the number of months that were left and that is the figure she came to. That was on 13 September.

The opposition have no policy. I am very, very happy to have the debate. If they have a policy, I invite them to jump up and come on the attack. I will take any interjection. As I thought—silence. It is just political expediency. We must clarify where the coalition has been. I did not interrupt the other speakers. I let them go. I had the view, ‘Make sure they get it out and then I can have my turn to correct the record.’ In December 2007—I know that seems a long time ago but it was not that long ago; it was only one month after Australians decided to change their government—they did not oppose the closure of the Pacific solution. The silence is deafening. In August 2008, the opposition did not seek to disallow regulations which abolished temporary protection visas. They are on their high horse. There is nothing else to frighten the Australian public about, but the mistruths cannot go unchallenged. Dr Stone, the shadow spokesperson on immigration, supported in December 2008 the detention policy through the Joint Standing Committee on Migration. She supported Labor’s detention policy. Only now do the coalition have a problem. Despite the decisions they made in December 2007, the decisions they made in August 2008 and the detention policies they supported through the Joint Standing Committee on Migration in December 2008, all of a sudden today the coalition have a problem. Where were they two years ago? They were silent. I can understand why.

It is in their DNA. It is etched in their DNA—deflect at any opportunity. If the government is doing something that is good for Australia or good for future Australians, deflect. Bring out the fears. We have seen it all before: workplace relations, the attack on our stimulus spending and now good old-fashioned race—yank that chain. Unfortunately, the coalition are playing politics. They are not good at it, but they are playing politics by blaming Labor’s policies for the five tragic deaths resulting from the boat explosion in April. Fortunately, they were rebuked by Mr Turnbull. There is some leadership there. But here is a classic claim for my last 20-odd seconds—this is fair dinkum; I am not joshing you here. There was a claim that there was a link between asylum seekers and swine flu—asylum seekers from the Middle East and swine flu from Mexico. I do not know how that claim came about. Maybe the person on the opposition who made that claim had just eaten a worm out of the tequila bottle, I do not know. (Time expired)

Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Sterle said that today’s matter of public importance on the inability of the Rudd Labor government to protect Australia’s border security is a waste of time. Senator Sterle sees it as a waste of time discussing Australia’s border security. Senator Sterle, I will remind you that all serious policymakers—and you will certainly never be mistaken as one—know that a fundamental responsibility of a federal government is to ensure the security of its nation. Therefore, ensuring that Australia’s borders are properly protected is a fundamental responsibility of the current government. It is a fundamental responsibility which Labor is failing at. However, what the current government is very, very good at is spin over substance. How do we know that? Last week, the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, in answer to a question without notice regarding whether Rudd Labor’s new border protection policies were actually working, said yes. The minister’s answer was:

The Rudd Labor government remains absolutely committed to strong border security measures.

With the evidence that is now before us in relation to the increase in unlawful arrivals, that answer demonstrates to all Australians just how out of touch with reality the Labor government is. I ask as part of this debate today: which part of ‘Labor has gone soft on border protection’ doesn’t the minister understand? Which part of ‘Labor is unable to manage Australia’s border security’ does the minister just not get? Is it the part where the evidence shows that Labor’s softer border protection measures have given the green light to people smugglers? Maybe it is the fact that, as at 13 September 2009, 31 new boats and 1,456 new asylum seekers have attempted to enter Australia illegally since August 2008. What is the minister’s response to this in question time? He pathetically tries to make light of the fact that the opposition has called for an urgent inquiry into the effect of the government’s immigration policies on people-smuggling. This is what the minister said:

We are not proposing an inquiry because we are proposing to continue strong action to try and combat people-smuggling. We are absolutely committed to the task at hand.

The only task at hand that the Labor government is committed to is to systematically and deliberately unravel the suite of measures that the Howard government put in place over time that collectively gave Australia strong border protection.

Why has the coalition called for an urgent inquiry? Because, based on last week’s rate of unlawful arrivals, we could see between 8,000 and 10,000 people attempting to enter Australia unlawfully in one year.

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Sterle interjecting—

Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Sterle laughs at those figures, but those people are being exploited by the people smugglers to whom you, with your policies, have given the green light, and that is absolutely shameful. The Minister for Immigration and Citizenship last Thursday during question time also said that boat arrivals are ‘an ongoing problem for Australia’. Without doubt, on that point he is correct.

I will get to Mr Rudd’s evidence based policy shortly, but let us get the facts straight. The increase in the number of unlawful arrivals is only a problem for Australians because of the Labor government’s soft border protection policies. The facts speak for themselves. Under the Howard government Australia sent a strong, consistent message to people smugglers: our doors are closed to unlawful people. The weakening, though, of the immigration policy by the Labor government has encouraged the biggest surge in people-smuggling since 2001 and 2002. In fact, after the Howard government put in place strong border protection measures, how many boats arrived in Australia between 2002-03 and 2004-05? None.

The Minister for Immigration and Citizenship raised an interesting statistic yesterday. He said, ‘But hold on, we need to look back at the figures from 2001 and 2002, when we had some 4,137 people arrive illegally here in the first year and 1,212 in the second year,’ and the minister is right. But, based on that evidence—because we know the Labor Party love evidence based policy—the Howard government took steps to put in place policies that would ensure that people smugglers were not able to ply their despicable trade. What did we have as a result of the strong policies implemented by the Howard government? The number of people trying to come here unlawfully went down to zero.

Unlike Senator Sterle, unlike the Labor Party, the Howard government recognised that the most fundamental responsibility of a federal government is to ensure the security of the nation and its people, and it took effective steps to ensure that it discharged its responsibility. Mr Rudd keeps telling the Australian people he is committed to evidence based policy. Well, Mr Rudd, here is some evidence for you in relation to the unlawful arrivals into Australian waters and onshore since your Labor government was elected. Thirty-one boats have been intercepted. I have here pages and pages setting out the number of people who have arrived in this country unlawfully. If you want evidence, there it is, and the evidence supports your inability to manage Australia’s border security. (Time expired)