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Transcript and audio link - 2GB Ray Hadley program

Monday 15th February 2010

Click on the link at the end of this page to listen to the interview.

Subjects: UNHCR figures reveal Rudd’s spin on boat arrivals, Border Protection Committee of Shadow Cabinet

EandOE

RAY HADLEY: New figures on illegal boat people show the influx of arrivals are not due to the so-called push factors in other countries that have been trotted out by the Prime Minister. Instead illegal immigrants are being drawn to Australia because, in my opinion, the Federal Government’s relaxing the immigration laws. Figures from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees shows asylum applications rose globally by only 5% in the nine months to September. In Australia applications from people rose by 25%. 25%. The results undermine the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s claim that push factors including war and civil unrest were forcing more illegal immigrants to flee other countries around the world. In North America the number of asylum applications actually declined by 3% in the nine months to September. Likewise in the United Kingdom the applications through to November fell by more than 30,000 to under 24,000 last year. The Shadow Immigration Minister Scott Morrison is on the line. Scott, g’day.

SCOTT MORRISON: G’day Ray.

RAY HADLEY: This is what he does all the time our Prime Minister.

SCOTT MORRISON: Well this is true Ray. He wants to blame global forces for everything, nothing is his fault, nothing is his responsibility. But the facts are here and they are that it’s his policies, it’s his decisions that have created the magnet for people smugglers which has filled up Christmas Island and now he will be bringing people to the mainland. It’s all spin as usual. There have always been global push factors, no one is denying that there are not millions of people who are in a distressed situation around the world but the point is, that hasn’t gotten worse, which is what he has been trying to say. As a result the only thing that has changed is that we have become a soft touch and as a result people are coming and that is under the policies of the Rudd Government.

RAY HADLEY: The point I wanted to make is he spoke off the cuff at that Q&A Program on the ABC last Monday and as The Australian pointed out on Tuesday he got all the figures wrong, from laptops to every other question he was asked by the young people who had gathered there. Now it appears to me that he says the first thing that comes into his mind without any stats to back up what he is saying and that was illustrated by his answers to those young people on Q&A and here is another case in point. He believes anecdotally that the figures are up but the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees says they’re not. So when is it going to stop? When is he going to stop simply offering what he thinks to be the truth as opposed to what is actually the truth?

SCOTT MORRISON: Well as long as he thinks he can continue to get away with it Ray. And I think that’s what the Opposition is trying to call him out on here and on your program and others, particularly yours on this issue, we’ve been making it very clear that the reasons so many people are coming is because of their policies and their decisions like the way they handled the Oceanic Viking. We’ve had almost as many people arrive in the last six weeks that arrived in the first six months of 2009. So this problem is getting worse, not better. Amazingly they thought when they put their budget together last year that only 200 people would turn up and that’s one of those ‘tell him you’re dreaming’ type comments that would apply to that type of logic. They simply don’t get it. I don’t think their heart is in trying to stop the boats and at the end of the day it’s a question of resolve and they don’t have it.

RAY HADLEY: Ok. Now at the weekend the Coalition announced the formation of a border protection committee of the Shadow Cabinet. Now that comprises yourself, Julie Bishop, David Johnston, George Brandis, Michael Keenan, Jason Wood and most importantly a bloke that has forgotten more about this than most people know, Phillip Ruddock. What will this committee do?

SCOTT MORRISON: Well we want a singular policy that deals with how you stop the boats. Because it’s not just what you do with your immigration policy, it’s what you do with foreign affairs, it’s what you do with your Attorney General, with the Australian Federal Police and Customs and you need all of these things working together to stop the boats. Now that’s the same approach we took when we were in government last time. When Kevin Rudd puts committees together he uses them as a human shield from his own decisions so he doesn’t have to make one. But this committee will develop a single policy that will seek to stop the boats and we’ll announce that before the next election.

RAY HADLEY: Ok, look forward to talking to you when that does get announced.

SCOTT MORRISON: Thanks a lot Ray.

RAY HADLEY: Scott Morrison, Shadow Immigration Minister, talking to us.

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