Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This evening I rise to welcome the Rudd government’s approach to immigration detention. What we have seen introduced is an approach which better reflects the compassion and tolerance of the Australian community, an approach which recognises that strong border security and the humane treatment of asylum seekers are compatible, an approach which makes detention a last resort and an approach which recognises that the arbitrary detention of asylum seekers benefits no-one. This new approach recognises that detention is only justified when the detainee poses a risk to the community. Where there is no such risk, there is no justification for detention.

The Rudd government’s announcement of its New Directions in Detention policy also marked the end of the Howard era approach to immigration detention, an approach that did enormous damage to Australia’s international reputation. It was also an approach which imposed a human cost on the individuals directly affected by detention, most of whom ended up remaining in Australia.

Credible research has demonstrated that long-term detention has negative impacts on the physical and mental health of detainees. Detention is also expensive. Where detention is necessary to counter a risk to the community, the expense is warranted. Rudd government policy requires the detention of unauthorised arrivals for the purposes of health, security and identity checks. However, if detainees pose no risk to the community, detaining them is simply a waste of resources that are better spent on working out whether unauthorised arrivals have a legitimate case, sending people back to their country of origin if they do not have a legitimate case or assisting them to establish new lives here if they do.

The Minister for Immigration and Citizenship has pointed out that the best deterrent is to ensure that those who have no right to remain in Australia are removed expeditiously. I might add, the best way to ensure that genuine asylum seekers are able to build productive lives in Australia is to resolve their cases quickly. The Howard government’s approach did nothing other than damage our international reputation, inflict harm on those seeking our protection and waste taxpayers’ money. It did not deter unauthorised arrivals.

As the first report on detention by the Joint Standing Committee on Migration acknowledges, the number of authorised arrivals fluctuates as a result of external factors, such as natural disasters, conflict and the activities of people smugglers. In this context, the idea that long-term detention deters unauthorised arrivals defies common sense. As my colleague the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship has said:

Labor rejects the notion that dehumanising and punishing unauthorised arrivals with long-term detention is an effective or civilised response. Desperate people are not deterred by the threat of harsh detention—they are often fleeing much worse circumstances.

In sum, Labor rejects the Howard government’s approach to immigration detention as both punitive and ineffective. For example, requiring detainees to repay the cost of their detention did nothing to offset the cost of detention to taxpayers, nor was it a deterrent. This should come as no surprise. If people are desperate enough to risk detention, they are hardly likely to be dissuaded by the thought of repaying a detention debt.

As for the idea that the imposition of detention debt would offset costs, this objective has manifestly failed. Detention debt did, however, put a big millstone around the necks of former detainees. Immigrants and the broader community both benefit if arrivals are able to become productive members of our society as seamlessly and swiftly as possible. This objective was undermined when former detainees were hamstrung with the stress of debts that sometimes totalled hundreds of thousands of dollars. This situation advantaged no-one—not the taxpaying public nor the new arrivals seeking to settle here. I am very pleased that this legacy is behind us.

Labor knows that there is no substitute for doing the real work over the long term to protect our borders, and we are doing that work. We are detaining unauthorised boat arrivals offshore and processing them expeditiously so that they can be sent back quickly if they do not have a legitimate claim for protection. That is real deterrence. We have increased border security resources to extend our sea and aerial surveillance capacity. That is real border protection.

The opposition are currently attempting to cloud the real issues on border protection in a clumsy attempt to repeat past victories. They believe that they scored political points by being seen to be tough on border protection in the past, and they want to return to those glory days. They are stuck in the past and they do not realise that the game is up. They do not realise that everyone else has cottoned on to the fact that talking tough and being tough are not the same thing. Hysterical talk and idle threats are just so much hot air. They get us nowhere fast on the question of border protection.

Talk is cheap, but immigration detention is not. It is expensive. Using it unnecessarily wastes taxpayers’ resources. Chasing debts that generally do not get paid is also a waste of resources that could be better spent on border protection strategies that actually work. Changing tack every time the number of boats goes up or down, without any rigorous analysis of what is driving these changes, gets us nowhere either. It leads to nothing but policy making on the run, policy making without an evidence base, inconsistent policy, bad policy, ineffective policy—coalition policy. Such cheap political point-scoring on an issue of such importance to both Australia’s security and our respect for human dignity is a disgrace. The opposition should embrace the Rudd government’s approach to immigration detention and leave their own failed policies where they belong: in the past.