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

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship (Senator Evans) to questions without notice asked by Senator Brandis today, relating to asylum seekers.

The questions provided by Senator Brandis were very clear. They were questions that the minister should have expected, given that an identical question was asked the day before and clearly not answered.

What we had was a spray of indignation from the other side, which talked about the low road and about base politics and which basically did not answer the question. We would have thought that the minister would have been able to provide answers to an absolutely essential question about the number of deaths and the circumstances surrounding the reporting of the number of deaths. I quote from Tuesday’s Sydney Daily Telegraph:

The constant arrival of claimed asylum seekers off Australia’s northern coastline comes with a dreadful toll.

More than 150 men, women and children, lured by the promises of people-smugglers and a belief that Australia offers easy sanctuary, have drowned at sea since 2008.

It clearly makes the connection between policy and an outcome.

It is very sad that we saw, in what can be described as no better than an artifice of indignation, the minister, who has become an absolute high priest of hypocrisy, standing in this place and saying that we are the ones who are lowering ourselves, asking how low we can go and then talking about the low road. Perhaps he should refer himself to a contribution made on Tuesday by the Attorney-General, Robert McClelland. Again, it has been reported:

The federal opposition has been urged to rethink its plan to restore temporary protection visas (TPVs), with the policy having been blamed for the deaths of hundreds of women and children.

That may be quoting from a media article, but I have satisfied myself by reading the Hansard that that is the case.

This is the height of hypocrisy; it was an important question. Instead of puffing up these feathers of false indignation the minister should actually answer the question. Of course, he is in complete denial that there is any aspect of this policy that can be connected with people making the choice and allowing people smugglers to ensure that people make for these shores. He said in his response today, ‘I take no responsibility. It is not our policy to blame at all.’ Let’s hear what an Afghan asylum seeker had to say last week about what is attracting people to Australia. This man was interviewed in Indonesia on ABC’s The 7.30 Report and he had an expectation of coming to Australia. He said in the interview that he prayed for the Rudd government.

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I bet he prays for their re-election!

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

Indeed. And then he said that they are accepting asylum seekers and, ‘God willing, they will win the next election.’ It is absolutely clear that it is the policies that are ensuring that we are driving innocent people into the hands of international criminals, who are the people smugglers. Of course, that environment is being caused by people who are in complete denial that it is their policies that are driving this movement.

It is not only the tragic cost in lives; it is a great cost to our economy. They are in complete denial about the numbers. More people have arrived this month than arrived in total during the last six years of the Howard government, once our full suite of measures were in place. One month and there were more than the entire last six years of the Howard government! It is absolutely appalling, and it is due, clearly, to those policies.

But as I said, the policies have cost us on a number of fronts. Senator Evans has decided that forecasted illegal boat arrivals are going to drop by 60 per cent in the next two weeks. He was not all that confident—he said:

I am not very confident that we can with any surety say that the 2,000 figure that is used for accounting purpose in that budget paper can be supported.

He does not believe it; he does not even believe his own budget papers. When he was asked in estimates about when there was any change to policy to back up the 60 per cent fall in illegal arrivals his answer was, ‘No, there is no change of policy; we just think it is going to happen.’ Can you give me a tip on the seventh, mate? We are not down at the races now; we are talking about a budget. This is a budget that has predicted a surplus of over $1 billion. Quite clearly, even Senator Evans does not believe his own budget, and if we look at the rate of three boats per week carrying more than 600 people per month, Labor’s projected surplus will clearly vanish.

The reality is that unless the government policy is changed and an Australian permanent visa is removed the only possible outcome is that people will keep coming, our borders will be crushed—they are completely porous—and our budget will never be in surplus.

Anne McEwen (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I find it disappointing that once again I am standing here addressing the issue of how Australia deals with people who come to this country seeking asylum and our protection. I am also extremely disappointed that once again we get the yelling from Senator Scullion, who seems to think that by screeching we are somehow going to justify the previous government’s attitude towards asylum seekers.

I would just like to take the opportunity to actually outline what our government’s position is on the treatment of illegal boat arrivals and people who come here seeking asylum. Before I do that, I just remind the Senate that across the world there some 42 million displaced persons seeking safe haven for themselves and their families. We are not going to be able to stop people wishing to come to countries like this and seeking a better life for their families, but what we can do is to ensure that when they do come here we treat them humanely and respectfully, and in a way that the Australian people would want us to.

I would like to remind the Senate that under the previous government the tragedy of the SIEV X occurred, where some 350 people died. I do not think we attempted to blame the previous government for that, and it was appalling that Senator Brandis’ question today was prefaced by a statement which implied that the government was responsible for deaths that may have occurred recently. Any death at sea is a tragedy, and the government extends its sympathy to the families of those people who died. It will not try to make political mileage out of it as we have seen here today from the opposition.

Who can forget the SIEV X? Who can forget the children overboard scandal? Who can forget the people who were incarcerated for years and years, slowly going mad, in Nauru and elsewhere under the previous government’s policy? Who can forget the women and children who risked their lives on boats coming to Australia as a direct result of the previous government’s failed terrible temporary protection visas which, of course, they want to return to—and we know that they will.

Just on that point, we know that the Howard government introduced TPVs in 1999 and, after that, nearly 8,500 people arrived by boat. More than 90 per cent of those people are now living in Australia quite successfully and quite happily. The Pacific solution also failed. That was another initiative of the Howard government. Seventy per cent of those people who were detained on Nauru and Manus Island under appalling conditions have now ultimately settled successfully in Australia or elsewhere. We should not forget that most people who come to this country seeking asylum do end up settling here or elsewhere because their claims of asylum are found to be legitimate. This government intends to process all people who come here under the international obligations that we have, and in fact we are doing that.

I was very proud to be part of a government whose initial initiative when dealing with the issue of asylum seekers who travel to this country by boat was to introduce seven key immigration detention values which indicated immediately that Australia was going to act in a much more humane and civilised manner towards people who come here. I am a member of the Joint Standing Committee on Migration and I have seen the impact those seven immigration detention values have had. For example, I can say that the Department of Immigration and Citizenship now has a much better and widespread culture of acting humanely towards people who come and ask for our assistance. The government is determined to process claims, as I said, in accordance with our international obligations but as quickly as possible and in a way that gives certainty to people who come here.

While we are adopting a much more humane attitude than the previous government, we are also not forgetting that our borders do need to remain strong. The government has undertaken many initiatives, including pursuing people smugglers to attempt to bring an end to that terrible trade in human cargo. But we are realistic as well. We are not going to make outrageous promises to the people of Australia that what we are doing is going to bring an end to the terrible situation that confronts us. (Time expired)

Russell Trood (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator McEwen says that she regrets having to stand in the chamber once again to defend the government’s policy in relation to asylum seekers. I feel rather similarly. It is a source of some concern to me that we have to stand here each day and draw attention to the abject failures of the Rudd government’s policy. The way in which the Rudd government has managed the issue of refugees and asylum seekers coming to our country from abroad—particularly Afghanistan and Sri Lanka—has been a textbook study of disaster from the start of the policy to this very day we are standing here.

As you know, Mr Deputy President, there are a rich number of examples we could use to draw attention to the failures of the Rudd government’s policy making. We could look at the insulation program. We could look at the Building the Education Revolution program. Now today we have the example of the government backflipping on its proposal to have an Asia-Pacific community. For any student of political science or public policy there are any number of examples of the way in which this government has completely failed to undertake sensible, sound public policy.

But this policy in relation to asylum seekers is a classic. From the very time it entered office, the government said: ‘We will ease what was’—supposedly and allegedly—‘an inhumane policy put in place by the Howard government and we will ease it in a fashion which will have absolutely no impact on the number of people who come seeking asylum in Australia. We can do this. We can do it confidently. We are absolutely certain that it will have absolutely no impact on the number of people coming here.’ It did this notwithstanding the advice received from the very beginning from those agencies who were aware of the extent of this trade. It did this notwithstanding the advice from the Australian Federal Police. It did this notwithstanding the advice from the Indonesian government, who of course have a longstanding association with these difficulties. It did it notwithstanding the advice of the International Organisation for Migration. All of them said, ‘If you ease this policy it will have consequences.’ But the government from the very beginning was in denial. From the very beginning it said, ‘It will not happen.’ So piece of legislation after piece legislation and bill after bill came into this place, as they went into the House of Representatives, and were passed and the policy was eased.

Of course, as time went on, the number of boats and people coming to Australia increased. I will just take a couple of random examples. In September 2009 there were 468 people on nine boats. In October 2009 there were 385 people on nine boats. In November 2009 there were 399 people on 11 boats. And so the numbers kept on rolling on into thousands of people and hundreds of boats. Then we got to the point in April of this year when the government suddenly discovered that the policy, as everyone had been telling it, was a disaster. The easing of these policies have had a very direct impact on the number of people who have been seeking asylum in Australia. The government suddenly changed its policy with no discussion and no public debate about the matter. On 9 April it was suddenly decided that the applications for anybody coming to Australia would not be processed, that the applications from Sri Lankans and Afghanis would not be processed for three months. This presumably was in response to a rising concern from the public about the number of people who were coming.

What has happened since that period of time? The numbers have kept rolling on. There has been absolutely no change in the number of people who have come to Australia. The consequence of it all is that there is nowhere to put them. The Christmas Island detention centre is full and they are now being spread right across the country. (Time expired)

Michael Forshaw (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Here we go again. There is an election looming before the end of this year and, sadly, the opposition are going to resort to the great scare campaign that they resorted to back in 2001 regarding asylum seekers, boat people and refugees. I well remember that campaign. I remember the Tampa incident, where the Labor opposition was given about 20 minutes notice of the new legislation, the most draconian legislation to be brought in by the Howard government. Twenty minutes notice the Leader of the Opposition was given before the bills were introduced into the House of Representatives.

We opposed that legislation at the time—it is often forgotten that we opposed it—and we suggested a range of amendments to it. Ultimately, many of those amendments were picked up when the legislation was finally passed by the Senate. I remind the parliament and indeed the public of that, because one of the most disgraceful accusations that was levelled against Kim Beazley, the then leader, was that he had gone soft on opposing the Howard government’s policies. The Howard government changed its policy position to enable agreement to be reached on the final legislation following the Tampa incident.

Of course, you made it worse. You then went on and did a whole range of other things which resulted in some of the most draconian and disgraceful situations to exist in this country with regard to the confinement and detention of asylum seekers. Children behind barbed wire fences—we all recall those scenes, which eventually led your government to understand that those sorts of places had to be closed down. It was the Labor government that brought humanity back into our refugee and asylum seeker policies, at the same time as ensuring strong border security.

I also recall that it was an election that was conducted not long after the September 11 tragedy in New York. There was a fever pitch created by the then Prime Minister, Mr Howard, about the hordes of potential terrorists coming to this country. The irony is, looking at the immigration figures over the Howard government years, how many people from those particular countries were allowed into this country legally, including just about all of the asylum seekers that came on the Tampa.

But here we go again—it is going to be raised, the old race issue. All around the world there are refugee pressures. We are not the only country that faces them. Indeed, the number of asylum seekers seeking to escape Africa and enter into Europe is phenomenal, incredible. We are not immune from this worldwide problem. We have to deal with it. In my view it is a problem that should be above political partisanship. If you get into government you are going to have to deal with it, and you are not going to solve the problem with the sorts of draconian policies that you are proposing, such as bringing back TPVs and reintroducing the so-called Pacific solution. You cannot even get Nauru to tell us that they will agree with that policy.

I was born in Cronulla and lived there for many years. One of the most shameful days in the history of this country was 11 December 2005, the day of the Cronulla riots. It is a wonder no-one was killed on that day when these unfortunate incidents occurred, whipped up by the frenzy created by Alan Jones and others who supported your policies. I never want to see that again in this country. (Time expired)

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

What the Labor government cannot dispute is that the Howard government faced a problem and found a solution. It handed that solution to the incoming government, who rejected it and who have now created a problem. Neither Senator Forshaw nor any of his colleagues can actually stand up and say that there is any border protection in this country. It is decimated. What we see are a desperate government. We are seeing the last resort of the directionally destitute when it comes to the actions of the government. They are poll driven and, as my colleague Senator Trood has said, they are reacting to polls. And to have Senator Forshaw comment on the proximity of this event to the election is most unusual.

It is now the case that the Christmas Island detention centre, decried by the Labor Party, is full and overflowing. They cannot control the people smugglers or the messages that the people smugglers are getting back to communities in Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and elsewhere. They have failed to halt the boats. It is the middle of winter and they are unsafe waters, and those leaking, unsafe, unseaworthy boats continue to come. As I have said before, it is a remarkable coincidence that these asylum seekers or would-be refugees have no interest in remaining in countries like Malaysia and Indonesia, which are of the same ethnic and religious persuasion as many of them, and keep coming to Australia.

But the destitution of this government came to its height yesterday, when we in Western Australia learnt that the agricultural campus of a university was the subject of speculation. There was consideration of the possibility of asylum seekers being placed at the Muresk institute. Subsequently we had the denial from the minister and his department that there had been any approach at all from the Department of Immigration and Citizenship to those who run Muresk for Curtin University of Technology. Then in this morning’s media Minister Evans laid it at the hands of the Premier of Western Australia and his staff. I have availed myself of the truth of this matter and indeed it did start with an officer of the department of immigration contacting the local council, the Northam shire. In the company of the CEO of the Northam shire it was a department of immigration officer who went to Muresk to see whether an agricultural campus of a university might be an appropriate place for asylum seekers. How much lower do you want to get?

The second question I want to ask is: what is the legal status of these people who are now being placed in asylum locations in Australia? What legal protection do they get that those on Christmas Island do not get as a result of previous legislation, and what circumstances are they going to face as a result? Only 10 days ago did we see asylum seekers placed in the Northern Goldfields town of Leonora—hardly an appropriate place, one would have thought, for people of this kind. I hope the minister will be able to refute the rumour that I heard, and that is that military bases in this country have been approached to see if there might be vacant barracks which could be used by asylum seekers. What an amazing irony, that we might have vacant barracks because our ADF personnel are in Afghanistan, in the gulf and in other places creating vacant barracks which, upon the inquiry of the department, might be able to be filled by asylum seekers. What a lamentable and regrettable situation. This government has got to get on top of this problem. This government has got to face up to the fact that it has failed and failed and failed.

Speaking of people smuggling, the point was made only recently that it is costing the citizens of Western Australia some $10 million per annum, because those found guilty and those on remand, numbering in excess of 100, are in Western Australian jails, which costs approximately $100,000 per head. I will finish on the question of people smugglers. The average fee charged is $15,000 per head and these boats have an average of 50 people. That is $750,000 per vessel. It is not bad money, tax free.

Question agreed to.