Media Release

Opinion Article, Sunday Telegraph: The smugglers' PM of choice

Sunday 7th March 2010

While Kevin Rudd still has his ‘hair shirt’ on, he must not forget to apologise for breaking his promise and dismantling the strong border protection regime he inherited from the Coalition.

Since Kevin Rudd began his border rollback in August 2008, 86 boats and almost 4000 people have arrived illegally on his watch.

Every tent that is erected on Christmas Island is an admission of Labor’s immigration failure.

On election eve, Kevin Rudd promised he would turn back the boats. As the recent inquiry into the explosion on SIEV 36 revealed, by April 2009 Kevin Rudd had changed his policy but hadn’t told anyone.

Whether it was turning back the boats, temporary visas, off shore processing in other countries or the strong resolve shown over the Tampa, the Howard Government was serious about stopping people smugglers, and it worked.

In the first two months of 2010 we have had more than three times the number of people arrive illegally by boat than in the last six years of the Coalition Government.

In 2010, there have been 18 illegal boat arrivals, two per week, with more than 950 people on board. This led me to recently describe 2010 as Kevin Rudd’s year of the people smuggler.

Knowing they cannot spin the people smugglers, Labor instead tries to spin the Australian people. They claim their recent surge in illegal boat arrivals is all about international push factors.

Since we experienced the last surge in illegal boat arrivals a decade ago, the number of asylum applications in western countries has fallen by almost 40%.

Data released by the UK Government Home office last week showed last year asylum applications in the UK, Canada and the US all declined, yet in Australia they increased by more than 30%. In the UK, asylum applications in the December quarter fell by 30%.

But even though global demand may arguably be lower, there has always been plenty of business for people smugglers. The difference is that Australia has not always been a soft touch for their trade.

The Rudd Government also says the spike is due to ‘regional’ conflicts in Afghanistan and Sri Lanka.

The Government knows the Sri Lankan traffic has largely dried up over summer and they refuse to advise the nationality of recent arrivals of groups to obscure this fact.

Afghanistan is an interesting case. There are 2.8 million Afghan refugees in the world today. This compares to 3.8 million back in 2001, when the Coalition was dealing with this issue. 2.6 million Afghans refugees are living in Pakistan and Iran. More than half of these have never lived in Afghanistan.

Since 2002, a year after Australian defence forces were sent to Afghanistan to fight the Taliban, 5.6 million Afghans have returned home, including 278,500 in 2008.

As thousands of Australian defence force personnel have gone to Afghanistan to make their home safer, thousands of young male Afghans have come to Australia seeking asylum. Under the Rudd Government they have received permanent visas within about 110 days of arriving. You can imagine what message this sends to our defence forces heading in the other direction.

Afghanistan is a long way from Australia. It is not a ‘regional’ conflict. There are closer asylum options available, such as the UK. Under Kevin Rudd we have become a destination of choice for Afghan refugees, not need.

But why should we stop the boats? It’s simple, people die on boats, including a reported 105 Afghans who set off from Indonesia last October never to be heard from again. We should not encourage a practice that encourages people to put their lives at risk for the profit of organised crime.

Secondly, it’s about fairness. Less than 1% of the worlds’ refugees will be granted permanent settlement in one of just 16 countries this year, including Australia. The need is great and the places are few. Every place provided to someone who comes illegally by boat is a place denied to someone we might otherwise choose to help.

To paraphrase John Howard, we should decide who we help, not the people smugglers or those who can afford to pay them.