Wyatt Roy (Longman, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I did not vote for a nation that was not a signatory to the Human Rights Convention. I would also make the point that throughout this entire debate a set of policies that are known to save lives and stop people going into detention centres has been on the table. Throughout the entire period that the member opposite was in government, they knew that these policies worked because they worked under the former government.

As I was saying, the first thing that members of the ADF who are implementing these policies say to you when they meet you—and I hope the member for Fraser listens to this; he is leaving again—is, 'Thank you for implementing policies that stop us lifting dead bodies out of the sea.' That is the first thing that members of the ADF say to you. When you think about it: 1,100 people, that we know of, drowned at sea and it was the responsibility of the ADF members to get those bodies out of the sea. That has a very significant professional and personal toll on the members of the ADF. I cannot understand what is a humanitarian standpoint when you implement policies that saw 1,100 people, that we know about, lose their life at sea and that saw 30,000 people arrive.

When we came back into government in 2013, there were not four people in detention centres and no children—I will not tell you what the figure is for all the people in detention—there were 1,400 children in detention centres. When we left government there was not one child in a detention centre and there were only four people in detention centres. So I cannot understand what it is that the left are saying is humanitarian about putting children into detention centres because of their policies. Those children are there because of their policies. I cannot understand what is humanitarian about 1,100 people drowning at sea.

There is no denying that these policies are difficult for us to grapple with as a nation. They are tough. But the result is that they have stopped the deaths at sea and they have stopped people going into detention centres. When we do that we actually free up the humanitarian dividend as a nation. We allow ourselves to get people out of detention centres and to take refugees from the most dangerous places across the globe and give them a safe haven and a new life here in Australia. If we do not have control of our borders, we do not have the ability to do that.

I want to talk about some of the successes of this government not only at saving lives at sea but also getting people out of detention centres. This is a figure that I am proud of and I particularly want to commend the Minister for Immigration. The latest figures that I have show that, since we came to government, the number of children in detention centres is down by 40 per cent. Because we have stopped people coming into detention centres, we can get them out and there are now more than 516 children who are no longer in detention centres, compared to when we came to government and inherited 1,400 children sitting in detention centres.

This legislation seeks to resolve that legacy by reintroducing temporary protection visas—something that we know works. It creates safe haven enterprise visas and it seeks to reinforce the government's ability to conduct maritime turnbacks. I know from talking to members of the ADF who do those turnback operations that they have a significant impact on people smugglers—people smugglers who, let us remember, are trading in a service or product that they know will kill a lot of people. What more evil trade can there be than one that trades in a service that they know will kill a lot of people? Turnbacks stop that trade. Particularly important in this legislation is the introduction of procedures that will speed up and streamline arrangements to get people out of detention centres and to process them, to deal with that legacy of 30,000 people that we inherited from the Labor government.

When you do these things—when you stop the deaths at sea, when you stop people coming into detention centres—you free up a significant humanitarian dividend for our nation. We know already that we are saving $2.5 billion with the measures that the government has already implemented, and we are getting children out of detention centres. I would say that once we deal with this legacy and the case load that this bill seeks to address, as a nation we should use that humanitarian dividend to offer new opportunities to people who are facing persecution across the globe, and rather than seeing them pay tens of thousands of dollars to risk their lives we should offer them safe haven and a new life here. Already we have seen the government do this, and I want to again thank the Minister for Immigration, the Prime Minister and this government for doing that. Because we have dealt with the asylum seekers coming by boat, because we are dealing with the issue in detention centres, this government has created 4,400 places in our intake for Christians and Yazidis from northern Iraq and Syria who, as President Obama said, are facing potential genocide. We could not do that if we did not implement the measures in this bill.

I think it is a great thing that we as a nation can say to 4,400 people who are facing the persecution from Da'ish, ISIL and its affiliates in northern Iraq and Syria, 'We can offer you a new life here in Australia', and that is the great thing about our nation: we are a successful migrant nation that has offered that new hope to people. But unless we stop the trade in people that people smugglers seek to sell, we do not have the ability to offer that greater generosity.

I would say that one of the great tragedies of modern politics is that it has become not only increasingly partisan but also increasingly short term. We do not talk about what our nation can do over 10, 20, 30, 40 or 50 years; instead we talk about what happens tomorrow. In this bill and in other measures that the government has taken, I can see green shoots appearing for what we can offer to the rest of the world over the coming decades. I think it is an appropriate time to start a discussion as a nation: if we get the measures in this bill right, what can our nation offer to people who face persecution across the globe? We know that today we take 13,750 refugees a year—and I am incredibly proud that that is something that we can do. As I said, there are 4,400 extra places that we can offer to Christians and Yazidis. Given that we are dealing with these issues, given that we are saving $2.5 billion over the coming decades, once this caseload has cleared I believe we should have a serious debate about lifting that refugee intake. I might suggest a figure of double that 4,400 places, with appropriate settlement services, over the long term. That would be the humanitarian dividend of these bills, and what could be better for our nation than to do that? But if we do not deal with these issues, that is something that we simply cannot offer to people who are facing persecution across the globe.

Nothing has amazed me more than the noise that has developed around this debate. I cannot understand how people on the left can say that it is a humanitarian standpoint to change policies day to day, to change political leader day to day, and see a situation where 1,100 people have drowned at sea. We sent our service men and women—some of the most professional, capable, dedicated and compassionate people in this country—out to pick bodies out of the sea as their contribution to this policy. This government has changed those policies, and people on the left can criticise us, they can say that we are 'evil' people, as they often like to say, but I would simply say to them: have a look at the facts. Have a look at what has actually happened. The Minister for Immigration, who is a bit of a pariah to the Twitterverse and to people on the left, has probably done more to save lives than any other parliamentarian in this country in the last few years. Let us be honest about that. He has done more to get people out of detention centres than any other politician in the last few years. I would say to those people who seek to criticise the government and the Minister for Immigration: remember the 1,100 people who drowned, and their families and their children. They were inevitably somebody's father, brother, sister or friend. I would say to them: remember the 516 children who are no longer in a detention centre as a result of the policies of this government. Remember the 1,400 children who were sitting in a detention centre when we came to government in 2013 as a result of the Labor Party's policies. What is humanitarian about that? What is compassionate of us as a nation about that? In 2007, there were only four people in detention and not a single child.

As this debate draws to a close, can I say that undeniably this government inherited a very significant mess on our borders from those opposite, but the resolve, in the face of significant adversity, of the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, of the Prime Minister, of the Minister for Foreign Affairs and of this government has seen a complete and utter turnaround on this policy front. The Labor Party said, for the six years that they were in government—and particularly for the three of those years that I was in this parliament—that this could never be achieved, that this could never happen. Well, today we stand here, just over a year after we came to government, and we are saving lives at sea. The boats have stopped. People are coming out of detention centres and being processed through that. We are not seeing children coming into that system, which I think was probably the worst part of this debate. And it is a result of policies that we knew worked. A member opposite put a question to me about voting for one of the policies that the Labor government put forward on one day of the week. But, throughout this entire debate, we have known that there have been a set of policies that worked, because they worked under the former coalition government. We have seen the evidence, as we have implemented these policies once again, that they have worked, that they have stopped the trade in people's lives. They have stopped people coming into detention centres and they have delivered a humanitarian dividend.

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