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Transcript and Youtube video - ABC2 News Breakfast

Monday 8th March 2010

Subjects: Indonesian President's visit, asylum seekers, Oceanic Viking

JOURNALIST: People smuggling will be firmly on the agenda when Indonesia’s President Yudhoyono meets Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in Canberra this week. The two countries have been working on a framework to respond to asylum seeker boats following the Oceanic Viking Standoff.
 
JOURNALIST: But progress has been slow and meanwhile Australia has intercepted 20 boats so far this year. Scott Morrison is the Opposition’s Immigration Spokesman and he joins me now in Canberra. Thank you for joining us. What do you believe the Prime Minister should be saying to the Indonesian President?

SCOTT MORRISON: Well I think that what’s important is that the Prime Minister outlines what Australia is going to do in terms of its own policies to deter people smuggling and the most important of those is to toughen up the immigration processes and to restore many of the elements that they inherited from the Coalition Government which had brought the boats to zero. The Prime Minister talked on the weekend about a durable solution but we had a durable solution because the number of boats had reduced to zero there was only eighteen boats over the last 6 years of the Coalition Government. We’ve had 20 boats now in just nine weeks which at that pace is higher than at any time since these boats have been recorded.

JOURNALIST: Well what do you believe should happen in the relations between Australia and the Indonesians that could prevent that happening?
What do you believe Kevin Rudd should be saying this week?

SCOTT MORRISON: As I said what he should be doing is outlining what changes he’s going to make to his policies. The Prime Minister has been trying to shove this problem off onto Indonesia. Every time he had a conversation with the Indonesian President about this he makes it public. He likes to big note himself around these issues but when the Coalition was in government we had a strong practical working relationship with the Indonesian Government which helped us get the boats down to zero and stopped people putting their lives at risk in the hands of the people smugglers. Now that relationship is no longer in place over the way that the Prime Minister both handled those sent back to the Port of Merak but also in the handling of the Oceanic Viking which has clearly created great tensions in the relationship between our two countries.

JOURNALIST: The time that the Indonesian President had to delay his trip the Opposition was saying it was because things were going so wrong with the Oceanic Viking. Other watchers were saying it was more because of diplomatic pressures back home that the Indonesian President had to cope with. Now that the Indonesian President is coming is that not a sign that relations are good and that there is a good working relationship between them?

SCOTT MORRISON: Well the boats keep coming and there is no arrangement currently which, for example, would enable us to tow boats back. When we were in government we had the type of relationship which enabled us to deal with boats as they arrived, and on at least four occasions we took boats back to within close range of the Indonesian coast and it was done with the cooperation of the Indonesian Government. It was all done very professionally and it was all done in a way which reflected the practical relationship at the time. Now we don’t have that relationship with Indonesia at the moment because I think the Indonesian Government is not convinced about the resolve of the Australian government in dealing with this issue. They had no doubts in their mind about our resolve. When the Coalition was in power we had clear policies and we had clear resolve and we brought the boats to zero. Now that’s what I believe the Indonesian Government wants to see from our Government. They want to see some clear commitments and some clear resolve to do things on our side of the fence which is actually attracting people to our shores. We’ve had 88 boats on Kevin Rudd’s watch since he started dismantling the regime that he inherited. He basically went to fix something that wasn’t broken and now he’s dealing with the consequences of his actions.

JOURNALIST: The Government is saying that more boats are coming also as a consequence of the end of the civil war in Sri Lanka. Could you not concede that this could have some affect on the number of people getting here.
SCOTT MORRISON: Well there’s never been any shortage of customers for people smugglers so lets put this in perspective. Back in 1999-2001 the total number of asylum applications in each of those years on average was 40% higher in western countries than it is today. The number of Afghan asylum seekers or refugees back in those years was about 3.8 million and today there’s 2.8 million. Of course there are always people looking for asylum but to suggest that this has led from going to eighteen boats to almost 90 boats in around 18-20 months I think is ridiculous. The other thing I’d say is this; since the Oceanic Viking debacle almost half the number of boats that have turned up on Kevin Rudd’s watch have turned up. You send signals to people smugglers when you bungle these issues and that’s what happened in this case both through their failed policies and their lack of resolve when tested like they were on the Oceanic Viking when they basically did a special deal which allowed four people to go to Christmas Island who had adverse security findings.

JOURNALIST: Scott Morrison, you’ve been talking about the 400 new arrivals coming to Christmas Island each month according to your estimates, if it transpires – although the Government is saying that it won’t happen – that some do need to come to the mainland, in effect what’s wrong with that, why not have less expensive processes - because clearly it costs a lot of money in administration and running costs to actually have this detention centre on Christmas Island?

SCOTT MORRISON: Well there are two problems with it, first, is that it says to people smugglers, you can now get your clients all the way to the Australian mainland without even having their claims tested. Offshore processing was one of the key factors, if not the key factor which led to getting the boats down to zero when we were in Government, so it’s a key deterrent factor. The second issue is this; it opens up a very murky legal territory which the Government, I believe, is extraordinarily complacent about. One of the issues we used to have when people were processed on-shore is that we would have endless appeals year after year after year and that was the reason why, in most cases, people were spending many years in detention because they were seeking endless appeals through the court system. Processing off shore was the key factor that led to the end of that process. Basically bringing people on shore to complete their processing will see this escalate not diminish.

JOURNALIST: Scott Morrison, from Sydney, thank you very much for joining us.

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