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representatives vote 2011-06-14#1
Edited by
mackay staff
on
2016-08-18 09:50:02
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Title
Motions — Asylum Seekers- Motions - Asylum Seekers - Suspend standing orders
Description
<p class="speaker">Tony Abbott</p><p>I move:</p><p class="italic">That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the Member for Warringah moving immediately—That this House calls on the Prime Minister to explain why she continues to pursue a people swap policy with Malaysia when it is now abundantly clear that Nauru provides an immediate solution to deal with illegal arrivals that is cost effective, humane and proven. In particular:</p>- The majority voted against suspending standing and sessional orders so that Liberal MP Tony Abbott could introduced his motion.
- ### Motion text
- > *That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the Member for Warringah moving immediately—That this House calls on the Prime Minister to explain why she continues to pursue a people swap policy with Malaysia when it is now abundantly clear that Nauru provides an immediate solution to deal with illegal arrivals that is cost effective, humane and proven. In particular:*
- > *(1) why would the Prime Minister send illegal arrivals to Malaysia:*
- >> *(a) which hasn't signed the UN Convention Against Torture, rather than Nauru which has;*
- >> *(b) which won't sign the UN Declaration on Refugees, when the Nauru Government announced yesterday that they will;*
- >> *(c) where they would be detained and tagged, rather than Nauru where they would have the run of the island under an open processing centre regime;*
- >> *(d) when she can't guarantee the standard and accessibility of medical care, when I have personally seen the hospital in Nauru and I can make this guarantee; and*
- >> *(e) when she can't guarantee the access to school for the children, when I have personally seen the schools in Nauru and I can make this guarantee; and*
- > *(2) above all, why should the Australian taxpayer be forced to pay over $300 million for a new processing facility in Malaysia when they have already funded one in Nauru that could be rapidly re-opened for a fraction of the cost and has been proven to work.*
<p class="italic">(1) why would the Prime Minister send illegal arrivals to Malaysia:</p><p class="italic">(a) which hasn't signed the UN Convention Against Torture, rather than Nauru which has;</p><p class="italic">(b) which won't sign the UN Declaration on Refugees, when the Nauru Government announced yesterday that they will;</p><p class="italic">(c) where they would be detained and tagged, rather than Nauru where they would have the run of the island under an open processing centre regime;</p><p class="italic">(d) when she can't guarantee the standard and accessibility of medical care, when I have personally seen the hospital in Nauru and I can make this guarantee; and</p><p class="italic">(e) when she can't guarantee the access to school for the children, when I have personally seen the schools in Nauru and I can make this guarantee; and</p><p class="italic">(2) above all, why should the Australian taxpayer be forced to pay over $300 million for a new processing facility in Malaysia when they have already funded one in Nauru that could be rapidly re-opened for a fraction of the cost and has been proven to work.</p><p>This is a very important issue. There is no more important issue than protecting the borders of our country. What is manifestly clear is that nothing this government has so far proposed has worked to protect the borders of this country. Back on 24 June last year, a date which will be known forever—at least to the foreign minister—as the day of fundamental injustice, the Prime Minister of this country said:</p><p class="italic">I accept that the Government has lost track. We will get back on track. I have taken control—</p><p>mark those words—</p><p class="italic">for precisely that purpose.</p><p>What control and what track? When it comes to border protection, the Prime Minister firstly announced that she would be sending boat people to East Timor. She made this announcement before the East Timorese government even knew about it. Then the Prime Minister announced that she would be sending boat people to Manus Island. She made this announcement before the PNG government had agreed to it. Finally, on the Saturday before the budget and in a state of desperation over the constant flow of boats to our borders, she rushed out—gazumping the Treasurer's own budget—and announced that boat people would be sent to Malaysia. She announced a deal before it was done. Every day in this parliament and in the public arena, as we saw earlier today in question time, it is clear that nothing about this deal is certain.</p><p>The one thing that is absolutely certain about this deal is that this Prime Minister, this minister and this government cannot be sure that boat people sent to Malaysia will be treated humanely. They cannot give that guarantee. I can give an absolute guarantee that any boat people sent to Nauru will be treated humanely and in accordance with decent Australian standards. I can give that guarantee because they have gone to Nauru in the past and they have been treated humanely.</p><p>The problem with the Prime Minister's people swap with Malaysia is that it is unfair to our country. Why should we take five times the number from Malaysia that they are taking from us? It is unfair and it is costly. Why should we spend $300 million to establish a processing centre in Malaysia when we have already spent the money to establish a centre in Nauru?</p><p>There is no more urgent matter for this House to consider than this, given the urgency of resolving the problem at our borders. We must suspend standing orders because it is the only way we can discuss the inhumanity that is inherent in what the government is proposing. Anyone sent to Malaysia under the government's deal, unlike sending people to Nauru, will be subject to Malaysian norms and not ours. I make no criticism of the Malaysian government. I make no criticism of the standards that the Malaysian government chooses to apply to its own people and to people who come irregularly to Malaysia, but people who have come to Australia deserve to be treated according to Australian standards. That is how they deserve to be treated and we can give a guarantee that anyone sent to Nauru will be treated humanely and decently.</p><p>What the government is proposing is that boat people who come to Australia will be sent to Malaysia. They will be detained, then they will be tagged and then they will be released. It is a 'tag and forget' policy. What this government thinks—as if these human beings are going to roam around Malaysia for the rest of their days with tags around their necks—is that somehow this tag, this talisman, will protect these boat people indefinitely from the rigours of the Malaysian penal system.</p><p>We have just heard what the Prime Minister said on another subject which involved the standards that apply in another country. She wants to send a flotilla of inspectors to that other country, and until those inspectors have been to that other country there is no way that we can have dealings with that other country. Is there a proposal to send inspectors to Malaysia? Is there a proposal to send similar battalions of inspectors to Malaysia to ensure that this tag is somehow sacrosanct? Of course there is not. I say to the decent, humane and caring members opposite who spent so much of their political careers attacking the Howard government for its alleged inhumanity to boat people: how can you sit there? How can members of the Left sit there silent when this government is proposing to deal with boat people in a way that is infinitely, vastly worse?</p><p>Tom Uren has been sitting in this parliament today listening to members of the Labor Party support a solution for the people-smuggling problem which will expose people who come to this country to caning with the rattan. It is necessary that we suspend standing orders because nothing is more important than ensuring that this government does not expose the boat people who come to this country to standards which are not ours.</p><p>I have been to Nauru. I have seen the facilities and I know what can be done. I know that there is no caning in Nauru. Detention is more cost-effective in Nauru and in conjunction with the use of temporary protection visas it has been proven to work. I visited many facilities in Nauru over last weekend and one of those facilities was a new police headquarters. I ask members opposite to note this: any people sent to Nauru who fall foul of the laws of Nauru would go to that police headquarters. I did not see any rattans. I did not see any whipping posts. I did not see any. Has Minister Bowen been to Malaysia? Has he inspected the justice facilities there? Can he give an absolute guarantee, any sort of guarantee, that boat people sent from Australia will not be treated by standards that we think are utterly inhumane.</p><p>Standing orders must be suspended so that this Prime Minister can explain why it is that she proposes to subject people who have come to this country, who have sought the protection of this country, to this kind of regime. She must explain herself. She must explain why she said, 'I would rule out anywhere that is not a signatory to the refugee convention,' but is now proposing to send people to Malaysia. <i>(Time expired)</i></p> <p class="speaker">Harry Jenkins</p><p>Is the motion seconded?</p> <p class="speaker">Scott Morrison</p><p>I second the motion. It is important that the Prime Minister come in here and explain herself because she has much to explain in relation to this matter. Australia does not want a people swap with Malaysia. It does not need a people swap with Malaysia. It needs a policy swap back to the proven solutions put in place by the Howard government, and that requires reopening Nauru and reintroducing temporary protection visas. The only people swap the Australian people are interested in is not a people swap with Malaysia but a people swap for the prime ministership of this country—from Julia Gillard to the Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott. That is the people swap the Australian people are interested in.</p><p>What we have seen time and time again from this government are knee-jerk reactions and ill-thought-through policies, and then the mayhem follows. The mayhem that has followed this government's decision to wind back the Howard government's border protection policies is writ large on our borders and it is writ large in the detention network, which is in a rolling crisis—every other day it seems that something is burning down, someone is assaulting someone or someone is breaking out. These things happen on average more than three times a day in the detention network. There is a critical incident more than three times a day in our immigration detention network.</p><p>Australia is tired of the failed and ill-thought-through policy debacles of this government, whether it is in border protection or anywhere else, and it is incumbent on the Prime Minister to come into this House and explain why on earth she would pursue this arrangement in Malaysia when there is a proven, more humane and more cost-effective solution that can be immediately introduced. On the eve of the budget, almost seven weeks ago, the Prime Minister and the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, who is sitting opposite, declared the Malaysian people swap deal. Almost seven weeks later, we still do not have an agreement. Almost seven weeks later, Minister Bowen was unable to tell this House whether he has visited one school, one police officer's precinct or one hospital in Malaysia that would be available to those whom he intends to send to Malaysia. The Prime Minister was unable to explain whether people who turn up in Australia by boat without documentation—and, as Minister Bowen knows, that is about 84 per cent—will be accepted by Malaysia. Will Malaysia use their right of veto to reject people on religious grounds? Will they exercise their right to take people or not take people if they have communicable diseases? The minister knows that last week there was a case of leprosy in our detention network. And there have been cases of tuberculosis. We have had a pilot refuse to take off because people had not got their tuberculosis screening back. Thank goodness the pilot was doing his job that day because this government, clearly, is not doing its job. It wants to cut corners to try and manage its crisis in the detention network.</p><p>The coalition's border protection policies are proven. I know the government are in massive denial about this, but there is one thing they just cannot hide from: in 2001 there were 43 boat arrivals and at the end of that year the Howard government introduced the Pacific solution—which was on top of temporary protection visas—and in 2002 there were no boats. In the last six years of the Howard government fewer people turned up by boat than have turned up in the last six weeks—since the Malaysian deal was announced. If their standard of success is how many people arrive, this arrangement has been less successful in six weeks than the Howard government's solution was over the course of six years.</p><p>I commend our proposals to this House because our proposals are proven. They are able to be delivered. I visited those facilities on two occasions and I know it can be implemented. Minister Bowen says that he will not touch anything where they have not signed the refugee convention—well, that went out the window the minute he negotiated the five-for-one people swap deal with Malaysia. The Leader of the Opposition has rightly talked about the treatment that those who go to Malaysia will be subject to. Those opposite should hang their heads in shame because what they are supporting under this agreement is something they would have condemned if any other party had put it forward. They should hold themselves accountable because the Australian people will. <i>(Time expired)</i></p> <p class='motion-notice motion-notice-truncated'>Long debate text truncated.</p>
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