Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

This is a long debate, isn't it? We have had debates before on boat arrivals and we will probably have them again before this parliament rises and the election happens. It is a long debate for a reason. There are 46 million displaced people around the world. Periodically it has been a national debate since about the middle of the 1970s. It is very interesting to look at the different national approaches we have taken over that time.

Not many people understand that a mere 1,700 or so Vietnamese boat people arrived here in the 1970s. There were 111 in 1976, about 868 in 1978 and about 304 in 1979. There were two approaches that could have been taken by the Labor Party at that time. We could have sought to demonise these people and take political advantage of it or we could have sought to work with the government to resolve the issue. It is a great credit to Mick Young and Ian Macphee, the then minister, that those members of the House got together and put together an agreement to resolve that issue and bring people here by an appropriate mechanism rather than having them risk their lives by coming here by boat.

Fast forward to the Howard era. You hear the opposition talking about the glories of the Howard era, but of course Howard fixed a problem that he had presided over. In 1999, 3,700 people arrived by boat. In the year 2000, 2,939 people arrived by boat. In 2001, 5,516 people arrived here by boat. I am not seeking to blame the former Prime Minister. He introduced TPVs, but they had very little effect. Some 4,000 people arrived after that. Those movements were not driven by domestic policy; they were driven by people being displaced by wars in places like Afghanistan and Iraq. Through a combination of events that number shrank to very little the next year—one, and then we got a few more along the way.

What was the Labor Party's approach during that time? It was to support the Howard government. Let us look at this opposition. We heard from the minister how they bragged to the American Embassy. We heard about the cables. A Liberal Party strategist bragged to the US Embassy about what a great issue this is for them. Despite the government's attempt to bring a rational, less heated, less partisan approach to this debate and commissioning the expert panel, what we have seen from the opposition is partisanship. This MPI reeks of a dark partisanship and the speeches given in support of it reek of a dark partisanship with the politics of division, florid language and aspersions being cast on the government's motives and their competence. We see all the Nixonian tricks you would expect from an opposition bent on serving its own interests rather than the national interest. That is I think the whole approach of the Liberal Party in this area. They have sought to gain partisan advantage at a time of national crisis.

The tragedy is that the opposition really are as sanctimonious as they are partisan. You hear sanctimonious reciting of the great triumphs of the Howard government but never talk about the amount of people who came here during those years. They never talk about the thousands that arrived during those years. They never talk about the fact that, even if the former Prime Minister solved a problem, it was a problem that had occurred on his watch. It did not occur on Labor's watch; it occurred during the Howard years—1999, 2000 and 2001. Let us not forget that the Howard government had the benefit of a parliamentary majority and an opposition that supported the government and did not, most importantly, frustrate its ability to act.

What have we seen from this opposition? Rejection of the Malaysian transfer agreement. After all of their rhetoric and sanctimonious lecturing about offshore processing, they marched into this parliament, sided with the Greens, not just in this House but in the Senate, and prevented the government from acting. It was an extraordinary thing for them to do given how sanctimonious and partisan they have been on this subject.

We need to talk about the facts of this year. You hear the opposition talking about arrivals, and there have been serious numbers of arrivals. There were more than 6,000 Sri Lankan irregular maritime arrivals in 2012-13 compared to 1,356 in the previous year. That is a significant increase. We know that is in part because there has been terrible strife in Sri Lanka. There have been a couple of hundred thousand people herded into barbed wire camps and a very serious war. Notwithstanding that very serious war, we know that some of those people are coming here for economic reasons and that is why, since that time, we have sent 1,073 people back to Sri Lanka.

As a government we are using all the tools available to us in order to deal with this issue. We have not sought from the opposition partisanship, sanctimonious lectures and entirely self-serving history lessons; we have always sought from the opposition cooperation in the national interest—the same cooperation that Mick Young gave Ian Macphee and the same cooperation that Kim Beazley gave former Prime Minister John Howard. Instead, what have we got from the opposition? No matter what the facts, no matter what the expert panel recommends and no matter what the Australian people want, the opposition are dedicated to coming into this parliament and frustrating the government's ability to do anything. They rejected the Malaysian transfer agreement, rejected the prospects of transfer agreements with other countries, demonised Malaysia for their attempts to cooperate with the government and rejected the expert panel—not just its recommendations but the prospect of it. They rejected its authority. They deliberately set out to undermine it. They said: 'It doesn't matter what the expert panel say, we'll reject it. We won't listen to them, because we know best.' They have undermined regional cooperation and the Bali process. They have attacked Malaysia. They have second-guessed Indonesia. They have refused to acknowledge what Indonesia has said—what the foreign minister and the chair of the foreign affairs committee have said over there. It does not matter what the Indonesians say. 'No, don't worry about them; we'll push the boats back.' That is what the opposition are telling people.

They have embraced a dangerous policy—this idea that you can turn boats back safely. Well, you cannot, and everybody knows you cannot. The Navy has told the parliament that you cannot, because, as the Navy's tactics change, so will the people smugglers'. We know that they are far more ruthless than we are, so they will burn boats. If you want some evidence of it, listen to Vice Admiral Ray Griggs, who said:

… there were incidents during these activities, as there have been incidents subsequently, which have been risky. There have been fires lit, there have been attempts to storm the engine compartment of these boats, there have been people jumping in the water and that sort of thing … yes, there are obviously risks involved in this process.

That is what the head of the Navy says. The opposition say, 'We're going to embrace this policy,' and they do not care what the evidence is. They do not care what the feedback is; they are going to do it.

This is an amazingly dangerous and short-sighted approach for the opposition to take, because they have set expectations very high indeed about the consequences of their policies, haven't they? Their rhetoric and their florid partisanship, their dark partisanship, have—let's face it—inflamed the passions of the Australian people, who are legitimately concerned about the arrivals on our border. But let us make no mistake: with this policy of theirs—frustrating the parliament and the government and trying to squeeze every vote out of this situation for themselves to try and change the government of Australia, instead of cooperating, ending this issue and saving lives—ultimately they have the tiger by the tail, and ultimately all of their dark partisanship will rebound on them and it will be to their everlasting disgrace.

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