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Transcript and audio link - ABC Radio - The World Today

Monday 8th March 2010

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Subjects: illegal boat arrivals, visit of Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono

ELEANOR HALL: The Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's visit to Canberra this week and the arrival of several more boatloads of asylum seekers has ensured that the Prime Minister will again be talking about the politically fraught subject of people smuggling.

The Federal Government has been trying to keep the debate under control since the month-long standoff involving the Oceanic Viking tested the relationship with Indonesia earlier this year.

During his visit this week, the Indonesian President is set to sign a new agreement on the issue with Kevin Rudd but the Opposition is already accusing Mr Rudd of offloading the responsibility for asylum seekers onto Indonesia.

In Canberra, Alexandra Kirk reports.

ALEXANDRA KIRK: So far this year 20 boats carrying asylum seekers have been intercepted, two at the weekend and there's no sign of any slowdown. The Opposition's immigration spokesman Scott Morrison says it's the highest arrival rate on record.

SCOTT MORRISON: We are at the highest rate of arrivals per month since boat arrival records have been kept and if it keeps on this track we will have over 100 arrivals this year and well over 5,000 people.

ALEXANDRA KIRK: The Government maintains it's a worldwide phenomenon - in other words Labor's policies are not the reason for the influx. Home Affairs Minister Brendan O'Connor dismisses the Coalition's argument.

BRENDAN O'CONNOR: The fact is that he has based that on data that hasn't been fully completed. The fact remains even from the existing data we know that Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Norway and other countries have experienced significant increases in 2009 compared with 2008.

The fact is that there are conflicts that will lead to people seeking asylum. What you see is fewer vessels getting closer to the mainland. We certainly did not have the amount of vessels that arrived on the mainland that we saw under the Howard government.

ALEXANDRA KIRK: But Scott Morrison isn't budging.

SCOTT MORRISON: In the UK last year we had asylum applications fall by 6 per cent. In the last full quarter they fell by 30 per cent. In the United States and in Canada, we saw similar falls. Across Europe and in all of these areas, the number of asylum applications today is 40 per cent lower than it was when the Coalition faced the surge of arrivals back in 99 through to 2001.

There is an inexhaustible market almost for people smugglers. What changes it is when domestic policies turn the product into something that is attractive and that is what has occurred.

ALEXANDRA KIRK: Kevin Rudd's been seeking to cement an agreement with Indonesia to counter people smuggling and stem the growing number of asylum seekers heading to Australia.

It's understood he and President Susilo Bambang Yodhoyono, who arrives in Australia tomorrow for a two-day visit, will sign a people smuggling agreement - a new framework under the existing Lombok treaty.

Scott Morrison says Kevin Rudd should stop trying to palm the problem off to Indonesia as he did with the Oceanic Viking asylum seekers.

SCOTT MORRISON: I mean we have basically spent so many credit points in how we have been dealing with these issues with the Indonesians and that is not how you have a practical working relationship. He needs to rebuild the trust based on having some real policies.

ALEXANDRA KIRK: He doesn't think a new accord will help.

SCOTT MORRISON: No, I don't think it will. I mean Kevin Rudd has been looking for Indonesian solutions so he doesn't have to come up with an Australian solution and the Australian solution is what has proved to be successful in the past with the border protection regime and immigration arrangements that the Coalition put in previously.

ALEXANDRA KIRK: Fergus Hanson, a research fellow with the Lowy Institute, has just written a paper on Australia's relationship with Indonesia. He says it's in a deep rut - that while government-to-government ties have been strengthening, relations are focused around a mostly negative set of security-related issues with poor mutual public perceptions.

He says a new accord on people smuggling could help lift the relationship out of its stagnation.

FERGUS HANSON: Well, I think the problem is still to continue to flare up. You would expect that this will continue to be an issue but if it is able to try and neutralise some of the more rhetorical language that we hear coming from politicians then I think that is a good thing.

Because this is one of the areas where we see passions flare up on any number of asylum seeker issues. You can think of the Tampa or the Oceanic Viking, or West Papuan asylum seekers. So if we can neutralise that to an extent and push that to one side, I think that will allow the relationship to have the opportunity to develop in a more positive direction.

ALEXANDRA KIRK: The Opposition, meanwhile, says it's Kevin Rudd that needs to take a new approach to asylum seekers and people smugglers. Scott Morrison suggests the Government take a leaf out of the Howard government's immigration policy handbook including towing boats back.

SCOTT MORRISON: Well our policy is to have an uncompromising position on offshore processing.

ALEXANDRA KIRK: But you haven't spelled out whether you want to reinstate the Pacific Solution?

SCOTT MORRISON: Well, people can call it whatever term they like but our position is that we would be uncompromising on offshore processing.

ELEANOR HALL: That is Scott Morrison, the Opposition immigration spokesman ending that report from Alexandra Kirk.

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