Scott Morrison : All Content Updates

Media Release : New commercial costings for Nauru expose absurdity of Labor's $2billion claims

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 13:00:00 GMT

The Coalition will reopen the processing centre on Nauru, closed by Labor, for less than a third of the cost Labor claims, with the first 350 beds available in less than 12 weeks, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Scott Morrison said today.

“These new commercial costings expose the absurd estimates released by Minister Bowen last month which were designed to do nothing other than continue Labor's ten year campaign of demonising and trashing Nauru as a location for offshore processing,” Mr Morrison said.

“These costings show that the first 350 beds on the site of the Howard Government processing centre will cost less than $10 million to get up and running again, with an even faster timeline possible if required,” he said.

“A further 1,000 beds on a new site called 'The Location', would be available from three to six months later, at a cost of $70 million, plus accommodation for staff to work on the island at a cost of $15 million.

“Operating costs on Nauru would be no greater than running detention centres in remote locations such as Christmas Island. Even assuming a 25% loading and operating at maximum capacity, the Coalition's costing is still less than half the Government's estimate, and delivers 600 more beds.

“With the implementation of the Coalition' full suite of border protection policies, abolished and rejected by Labor, these costs would also fall as the boats stopped coming. From 2001 to 2007 the total operating costs for Nauru and Manus Island were $ 289 million.

“The Coalition’s costings are based on new commercial in confidence advice from a major company that was directly involved in running and establishing the centre over eight years, when it last operated on Nauru.

“Last year this company approached the Government and the Opposition offering to provide advice on the costs and logistics to re-establish the offshore processing centre on Nauru. We took them up on their offer.

“The company has extensive experience in building and running facilities in remote locations, not only in Australia but also Nauru, East Timor and Papua New Guinea.

“The Government's costings make it clear Labor has never been serious about reopening Nauru and their claims to do so were disingenuous.

“Not only would the type of centre Labor costed be unacceptable to Nauru, as confirmed to me by their President, their claimed operating costs on Nauru would be five times more expensive than running other facilities such as Christmas Island and building costs four times more expensive than reopening the remote detention centre at Curtin, WA.

“Every morning Minister Bowen wakes up trying to think of more excuses for why he has failed to fix Labor’s border protection failures. If he isn’t directly blaming the Opposition for the Government's impotence, he is endlessly criticising the Coalition’s longstanding policies that the Australian people know worked.

“Minister Bowen has become the 'Minister for Excuses' on border protection. He should spend less time carping about the Opposition, admit the Government got it wrong and just restore the policies that actually worked to stop the boats.

“If Labor had started the job of reopening Nauru before Christmas, rather than trying to blame and fit up the Opposition for their own policy failures, it would now only be a few weeks away from opening.

“It is clear the only way to reverse Labor’s failures on our borders is to change the Government. As long as Labor have a job, the people smugglers will have one as well,” Mr Morrison said.

Nauru costings outline is attached below

Speech : Transcript - Joint doorstop interview

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 13:00:00 GMT

Speech

Transcript - Joint doorstop interview

Friday 3rd February 2012

Subjects: Julia Gillard’s carbon tax; aviation ticketing increase; Craig Thomson; Queensland and NSW floods; job losses; ALP leadership, Labor's failed border protection policies

EOandE

TONY ABBOTT:

Well good morning and it’s lovely to be here. I want to thank Stephen Rich and his staff for making Scott Morrison and me so welcome.

This is one of the tens of thousands of small and medium sized business will be punished by Labor's carbon tax. More than that, this is one of the vital businesses if our sophisticated manufacturing capacity in this country is to survive. Manufacturing needs tools and tools need tool-making businesses like this but the carbon tax on top of all sorts of other things is going to make it that much harder for this business to survive and flourish into the future.

The Rich’s electricity bill is something like $40,000 a year. That will go up by $4,000 at the very first hit of the carbon tax. Power will be more expensive, aluminium will be expensive, steel will be more expensive. Everything that this business uses to make tools will be more expensive under the carbon tax. That's why the best thing that this government could do for the manufacturing industries of this country is scrap the carbon tax now.

We are already seeing illustrations of how the carbon tax is casting a dark shadow on the families of this country, the jobs of this country. We had yesterday an announcement from Qantas and Jetstar that their tickets are going to cost more because of the carbon tax. So everything you do will be more expensive under the carbon tax. Turn on the lights, you pay. Open the fridge, you pay. Get on the train, you pay. Catch a plane, you pay. This carbon tax won't just be bad for jobs, won't just be bad for families, it's now going to be bad for the tourist industry because it will be a tax on holidays as well as a tax on the necessities of life.

I have a very simple message for the manufacturing workers of Australia – your jobs won't be safe until Julia Gillard loses her job and this government is gone because the carbon tax is a dagger aimed at the heart of manufacturing in this country.

Just a couple of other subjects, if I may before I ask Scott and Stephen to say a few words. Look, Fair Work Australia must bring its investigation of Craig Thomson to a swift conclusion with appropriate action to follow. The Prime Minister really needs to answer this question: does she continue to have full confidence in Craig Thomson? Does she have full confidence in Fair Work Australia’s investigation? If we are to have respect for the institutions of this country, we need to be certain that there has been no political interference in their investigations and that's why it's imperative that the Prime Minister declare: does she still have full confidence in Craig Thomson? Does she have full confidence in Fair Work Australia's investigation?

Finally, we know that yet again there are devastating floods in southern central Queensland and northern central New South Wales. Obviously, all Australians' hearts are with the people in those areas who are now yet again flood impacted. I spoke this morning with Bruce Scott, member for Maranoa, who was out with his local community preparing sand bags in Roma. I spoke this morning with Mark Coulton, who is the member for Parkes. He was getting his truck ready so that he could help with the clean up in Moree. It's very important that all Australians do what they can to help our fellow Australians in times of need and it's great to see local members helping their people at a time like this. Scott.

SCOTT MORRISON:
We're here in the heart of the Shire’s light industrial area, here as well as Kirrawee a bit further west from here, and as you look around this place this is a carbon laden business which is right in the sights of Julia Gillard's carbon tax. And Stephen and Kathy Rich who run this business, they took it over from Stephen's parents, Charles and Gwen, they've built this business over more than 50 years and, as the time has gone on, it's got tougher. They've had to deal with changes in the global economy and here in Australia and they've been in there continuing to employ people, local people and they’ve done an extraordinary job and the last thing this business needs is a kick in the teeth from the Gillard government with their carbon tax but that’s what’s coming their way on the first of July as a result of this government’s attitude towards manufacturing, towards small business and the future of our economy.
I want to really congratulate Stephen and Kathy and Gwen and Charles for the magnificent job they’ve done here over more than 50 years. They are the true heroes of the Australian economy, of our Shire economy and we are indebted to them for the jobs they’ve created and this prosperity they’ve created for our Shire and for our country.

TONY ABBOTT:

Stephen?

STEPHEN RICH:

Thanks. We just can’t keep in business when our costs keep going up and our overheads go up and our turnover goes down because lack of work and overseas competition. That’s all. Thank you.

TONY ABBOTT:

Well said Stephen. Ok. Any questions?

QUESTION:

Mr Abbott, Kevin Rudd again in the headlines. It seems everyday there’s a new story to do with him…is this going to be a game-changer for the Coalition because it’s got to the stage now where you guys probably have to seriously consider him as a return to prime minister?

TONY ABBOTT:

Look, I think the important thing is that the government change its policies and they can change their leader but unless they change their policies, this will continue to be a bad government for Australia and what I’m on about is good government. In the end, it’s up to the Labor Party to decide who their leader is. But what I want for Australia is the best possible government. That means a government that gets spending down and productivity up so that we can get borrowing down, so that we can get taxes down and we can start to get more money in the pockets of ordinary Australians who are doing it tough.

QUESTION:

[Inaudible] who poses a bigger threat to you at the next election?

TONY ABBOTT:

Look, I just think that the important thing is to have the best possible government for Australia and, look, that’s what I’m focused on – good government for our country. The important thing for the Labor Party is to change its policies not just change its leaders and, at the moment, what we’ve got is the faceless men plainly involved in a whole serious of factional calculations but it doesn’t matter who the faceless men pick. In the end you’ve got to have the right policies for our country.

QUESTION:

Does this holding voters in contempt though? If we have another leadership changeover after two elections?

TONY ABBOTT:

Well, the fact is I think the Labor Party holds voters in contempt when it’s not the elected members, it’s the faceless men who seem to be in charge of the party and that’s the problem. The faceless men have obviously decided that Julia Gillard is not up to the job but it’s not really up to the faceless men. It’s up to the Australia people and one of the reasons why I keep saying we need an election is because that way the people are in charge, not the faceless men.

QUESTION:

[Inaudible] when do you think you’d be able to deliver that?

TONY ABBOTT:

Well, I think it’s very important that government remembers that in the end it’s all about delivering better services to the Australian people. Good economic management is essential but good economic management is a means to an end and the end is better services to the Australia people, lower taxes for the Australian people, a better life for the Australian people and I am totally committed to disability insurance. I am totally committed to better dental services and once we’ve got the budget back in strong surplus then we can fully deliver these.

QUESTION:

[inaudible] Labor for not having any plans to deal with the international economic crisis. What is your plan?

TONY ABBOTT:

Well, our plan is to get government spending down and to get productivity up because that means borrowing goes down, that means less pressure on interest rates, that means that taxes can go down for ordinary Australians, that means more money in people’s pockets and less pressure on struggling families and the household budget.

QUESTION:

If you go to specifics about that though, because we’ve seen this week Holden, Westpac and also the Mortein factory all cutting jobs. If you were to become prime minister, how could you ensure there weren’t going to be service cuts like this?

TONY ABBOTT:

I can ensure that there will be no carbon tax, no mining tax, there won’t be wasteful and extravagant government spending on programmes like the pink batts that caught fire in people’s roofs, on the overpriced school halls that were rip off after rip off, on a nationalised broadband network which Australians don’t necessarily need and don’t want to pay more for. Now if you have responsible, prudent, frugal government, then you can put more money into people’s pockets, then you create the kind of economic circumstances in which jobs can increase, not decrease.

Let’s not forget, last year there was no net increase in jobs. For the first time in 20 years, under this government, there was no net increase in jobs. That’s a terribly indictment on this government’s economic management.

QUESTION:

How do you know that Rudd will challenge before the Queensland election?

TONY ABBOTT:

Look, in the end, what happens in the Labor Party is a matter for the Labor Party but Kevin Rudd obviously thinks he’s a miracle worker in Queensland and when you’ve got a big problem in Queensland, you’d think you’d want the miracle worker to be out there. So in the end it’s up the Labor Party to put its house in order. In the end, as far as I’m concerned, what’s important is not who leads the Labor Party. What’s important is good government for our country and the best way to get that is to take government out of the hands of the faceless men and put it in the hands of the Australian people with an election.

QUESTION:

Tony, with parliament going back shortly, are you expecting some sort of apology or acknowledgement from the federal government that your comments on Australia day were taken completely out of context?

TONY ABBOTT:

Look, I think it’s pretty clear that I was verballed by the Prime Minister’s office and I think it’s pretty clear that the government is desperate to try to cover all that up. Now, I think we should get to the bottom of it. Let’s face it, this is the most serious security breach involving an Australian Prime Minister in more than 30 years. There should be a full police investigation so that we can learn the lessons of this, so that this problem can be avoided in the future and I guess the fundamental lesson is let’s not have a government which is known for deception and dirty tricks.

QUESTION:

What can the federal government do to respond to job cuts at banks and plants?

TONY ABBOTT:

The federal government can’t solve all problems but it must avoid making a difficult situation worse and this is why government waste is a problem. This is why all these new taxes, particularly the carbon tax are a disaster and that’s why I say to the manufacturing workers of this country, your jobs won’t be safe until Julia Gillard loses hers and this government is gone.

QUESTION:

Scott, have you got any update on the Malaysia situation at all?

SCOTT MORRISON:

The reports that we have are what you have as well today and the effort at the moment always has to focus on recovery and rescue. But the Coalition has always had a very consistent policy on this area. We remain absolutely committed to this policy and that is the policy that is proven. That is the policy that is strong and that is the policy that should be restored to stop the boats.

QUESTION:

What’s the status of your talks with the government in terms of trying to solve the crisis?

SCOTT MORRISON:

Well, there are no further talks because the government has refused to change the legislation which they are seeking to force upon the parliament and the government clearly has been seeking to do nothing other than trash the Nauru option with their ridiculous costings which have been lampooned literally around the country. They have no serious intention of restoring temporary protection visas. We know they won’t turn the boats back. There is a sharp contrast between the Coalition and the government on this issue. It’s a sharp contrast on our record. It’s a sharp contrast on our policy and I think the Australian people know who they trust to get the issue of border protection right.

Thanks.

[ends]

Media Release : Coalition program to help Bate Bay clubs save lives

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 13:00:00 GMT

Our Bate Bay Surf Life Saving Clubs will have the chance to apply for new cash grants for vital safety equipment under a Coalition Government, Local Federal Member for Cook, Scott Morrison said today.

“The Coalition is committed to helping our local Surf Life Saving Clubs by giving them the backing they need to continue their important work on our beaches,” Mr Morrison said.

“That’s why the Coalition’s plan to reduce drownings, announced by Opposition Leader Tony Abbott yesterday, includes a commitment to an extra $10 million to assist surf life saving clubs like our four great Bate Bay clubs, purchase much needed equipment,” he said.

“This funding will provide Australian surf clubs with an additional $1.6 million per year for five years, providing on average $5,000 per year to each of the nation’s 310 surf clubs. This funding would be directed towards the purchase of vital rescue equipment, first aid and medical supplies.

“The Coalition recognises that investing in beach safety can save lives, as well as reducing injuries and incapacitations.

“Drowning statistics fail to reflect the significance of the lives saved each year through the work undertaken by the likes of our Bate Bay Surf Life Saving Clubs who prevent the terrible pain of losing a family member for families every year.

“The Coalition will also extend the Beach Drowning Black Spot Reduction Programme which uses targeted infrastructure, additional resources and services to tackle the incidence of drowning in identified high risk areas. A Coalition Government will provide an additional $400,000 per year to this existing programme.

“As part of our on-going commitment to Surf Life Saving, representatives of the Coalition will also meet with Surf Life Saving Australia in February to discuss other ways we can encourage water safety across Australia and reduce government compliance costs and red tape across this important national institution.

“Our four Bate Bay clubs have a fine tradition of service to the Shire community and the Coalition is committed to supporting that contribution. I am proud to be able to support this program,” Mr Morrison said.

Media Release : Morrison congratulates Australia Day honours recipients as Shire celebrates

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 13:00:00 GMT

Local Federal Member for Cook, Scott Morrison today paid tribute to Cook residents recognised with Australia Day honours this year including one of the Shire’s most treasured residents – Australian cricket legend Ricky Pointing and thanked the Shire community for a wonderful family celebration of Australia Day.

“This Australia Day was celebrated enthusiastically and safely by Shire residents at Cronulla this year, a testament to the hard work of our police, emergency services and Sutherland Shire Council for co-ordinating efforts on the day,” Mr Morrison said.

“Initiatives like alcohol free zones on our beaches continued to help create the family friendly atmosphere of the day. Sutherland Shire Council can be particularly proud of its efforts in providing the entertainment on offer and spectacular fireworks displays,” he said.

“Four Cook residents received Australia Day honours this year. While Ricky Pointing needs no introduction, his work on behalf of children through the Pointing Foundation often occurs outside of the glare of the media and is a sign of the true character of this cricketing hero. His appointment as an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) was well deserved.

“Graham Hill, who was awarded the Cook Community Medal at the Cook Community Awards last year, received an OAM for his service to the community.

“Mr Hill has made an extraordinary contribution to his community as President of Tradies and is one of the Shire’s most generous and selfless servants.

“WWII veteran, life member of the Cronulla RSL Memorial Club and St George Legacy volunteer Ray Hart of Lilli Pilli was also honoured with an OAM and Associate Professor Alan Watson of Gymea was made a Member of the Order (AM) of Australia for his service to the international community as founder of the Katoke Trust for Overseas Aid to Tanzania and services to education.

“The Shire’s strong community spirit is evident in the tireless work of those recognised this Australia Day. It is the example of these people that inspires countless others to undertake the noble pursuit of community service and help make our community a better place.

“On Australia Day, above all days, we should remember their work and sacrifice and encourage others to follow their example of service,” Mr Morrison said.

Speech : Transcript - ABC News 24

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 13:00:00 GMT

Speech

Transcript - ABC News 24

Tuesday 24th January 2012

SUBJECTS: Labor’s absurd Nauru costings, Government’s proposed offshore processing legislation, turning boats back where it is safe to do so

E and OE

CURTIS:
Do you accept the figures that Chris Bowen says have come from the Department that the costs of reopening a processing centre on Nauru will be $1.7 billion over four years?

MORRISON:
No they’re absolutely ridiculous. I mean, he must’ve got the BER costing team to work on this. He’s suggesting it’s going to cost $500,000 per person per year. We said that he should rebuild it, he should reopen it on Nauru not the moon and I think what the government has to do here is be honest as they’ve just simply sought to trash the Nauru option in this disgraceful exercise. He should release the full line by line costings of this. I mean he’s basically saying that it costs four times as much to run a processing centre on Nauru then it does on Christmas Island –

CURTIS:
But these are figures he says - these are figures he says come from his Department. Do you not accept the figures from the Department and would you not be getting the same advice from the Department if you were in government?

MORRISON:
If I got that advice from the Department, there would be hell to pay because it is just simply absurd. I totally reject those figures. $500,000 per person, I mean that is absolutely ridiculous. They’ve clearly been asked to come up with the biggest figure they can think of and double it to trash the Nauru option. No, those figures the Minister should be embarrassed about, the Department should be embarrassed about presenting them. This is a government that has blown out its budget by $3 billion on these costs [inaudible]… I mean, Peter Garrett would’ve been embarrassed about these sorts of costings and he shouldn’t have used Peter Garrett’s costing teams to come up with them.

CURTIS:
You rejected the advice the Minister says has come from the Department that reopening Nauru would not provide a deterrent to asylum seekers, you’re now rejecting the advice he says the Department has come up with about the cost of Nauru – do you simply not accept the advice that comes from the Department and would you have a problem then with a Department you may be running if you were in government?

MORRISON:
Well I’ll be issuing instructions to my department about the policies that they’ll be implementing under an Abbott government and those policies will be implemented. This is a Department that of course we would work with, I mean there’s many professional people there who do an outstanding job with a very bad policy from this government but what we’ve always said Lyndal, as you know, is there’s no one answer here. You need a combination of measures, we’ve always been clear about what those measures are; the reopening of an offshore processing centre in Nauru, the immediate reintroduction of temporary protection visas for all offshore entry persons and thirdly to turn back boats where it is safe to do so. Now I accept the government clearly rejects all of those measures – they’re the measures the government abolished so of course they reject them but in doing so they must take responsibility for the almost 15,000 people that have turned up in more than 275 boats as a result of that decision. Now they completely don’t get it – that this is a mess of their own making and they continue to refuse policies that work.

CURTIS:
In the negotiations that Chris Bowen had with you over the question of asylum seekers, he said the government would look at reopening Nauru, a policy he previously hasn’t wanted to implement. He also said the government would be prepared to have an inquiry into temporary protection visas. Did the Opposition – did you give any concessions at all, were you prepared to concede any of your position in order to make these negotiations work?

MORRISON:
What we’ve always understood about this government is you can’t trust deals with this government. Andrew Wilkie found that out this week, the Australian people found that out after the last election on the carbon tax and Kevin Rudd certainly found that out about Julia Gillard when she terminated his leadership. I mean, we didn’t enter this process as some horse trading exercise on national security – we don’t think that’s how these matters should be determined. We said upfront we would tell the government what we would support, we did that, we explained to them the problems that we saw with their policies and in particular with their legislation. Let’s not forget, it was the government seeking support from the Opposition for the legislation they have already put into the Parliament. The government has not suggested one change to that legislation and even today, the Minister has written back to me and again not addressed the core issue – how are they proposing to put forward a different legislative proposal that the Coalition can support? We don’t support a blank cheque for this government on this issue – that’s what they’ve asked for, they won’t get one and they should apply their minds to the legislation which is the core of this issue.

CURTIS:
At the core of your opposition to the government’s policy was the fact that Malaysia where the government was proposing an asylum seeker for refugee swap – Malaysia is not a signatory to the Refugee Convention but you yourself are saying you would like to turn boats back to Indonesia where it’s safe to do so - now Indonesia’s not a signatory to the Refugee Convention, is it?

MORRISON:
Well let’s deal with these matters in turn. Our core opposition to the government’s legislation, which is the core of this matter, is that it abolishes all human rights protections in the Migration Act, not just for Malaysia, but for anything that any government may come up with in the future. It is an absolute and complete blank cheque so that in isolation is a measure that can’t be supported and frankly is unrelated to Malaysia. On the issue of Malaysia, that is offshore processing and that’s what we’ve compared to Nauru. Turning boats back is turning boats back – we don’t pretend its offshore processing. It has the same outcome as seeking to frustrate the boats leaving Indonesia which this government engages in. We are very clear about our measures, we know how they fit together, we resolve to put them in place again. The government opposes them - that’s their decision and they’ve come up with these furphy costings and I think quite disingenuous offers when it comes to TPVs. They should just be upfront with people – they don’t want to restore the policies that work. They’ve got a choice, if they don’t want to seek the Coalition’s support by changing the legislation to something we can adopt then they should go and talk to the Greens who are their alliance partner and they should put their unamended demand for their legislation to them.

CURTIS:
In an article in the Australian on the weekend, it seemed to suggest that Tony Abbott was now saying that turning back boats would be core policy, that a Coalition government would increase the presence of the navy in order for that to happen. Has in reality your policy changed?

MORRISON:
No, it’s the same policy we’ve always had along with there are seven Armidale class vessels that are currently dedicated to that task, along with the eight Bay class vessels run by the Australian customs and border protection service. The navy has a further seven Armidale class vessels and other support and supply ships and the resources that may be required by the navy to implement the policy, which they implemented before frankly when their resources were not what they are today, is something that we can address in government and potentially through redeployment. But our policy has not changed.

CURTIS:
Would you ask the navy to do anything which would not be in accordance with international safety of life at sea laws?

MORRISON:
Well we never did before and … [inaudible]… we implemented this policy previously within international law with the full employment by the navy in these matters, they showed their absolute professionalism and I have no doubt they would do so again and equip themselves for the task of implementing government policy which the government has stated is in our national interest.

CURTIS:
Scott Morrison, thank you very much for your time.

MORRISON:
Thanks a lot Lyndal, good to be with you.

Ends

Speech : Transcript - Doorstop interview

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 13:00:00 GMT

Speech

Transcript - Doorstop interview

Tuesday 24th January 2012

Subjects: Government’s proposed offshore processing legislation, turning boats back where it is safe to do so

EandOE

MORRISON:

The Coalition has always known this government can’t be trusted on deals. These deals only last as long as they remain in Julia Gillard’s and the government’s own political interest. Andrew Wilkie found that out this week, the Australian people found that out after the last election with the betrayal over the carbon tax and Kevin Rudd certainly found that out when they terminated his leadership. The Coalition entered these discussions not to engage in any horse trading or political deals on these serious national security matters. What we did was enter into discussions with the government to make it very clear, proposals that we would support. The problems that we had were with the government’s policies. It is incumbent on the government in that process to demonstrate to us their ability to rectify those issues and address that matters that we have raised. The government came to the Coalition seeking support for their legislation unamended and it’s imperative that when holding discussions on such matters that the government addresses the concerns raised by the Coalition.

Not only can the Australian people not trust this government on their deals, nor can the Coalition, they also cannot be trusted on our borders as well. They have demonstrated that also. Their decision through Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard to remove everything the Howard Government put in place has led to almost 15,000 people turning up on 277 illegal vessels. That is a clear demonstration of the government’s failures and everything they have sought to do since then has been a failure. The only illegal policy being pursued in this area is by the government and that is the failed Malaysia people swap that was struck down by the High Court and rejected by the Australian Parliament.

So as we go forward what we have sought through the government over this process over the weeks that have transpired since just before Christmas, is a clear response to the issues and concerns we have raised. It is disappointing the government is either unwilling or unable to address the concerns that we have raised in relation to their proposed legislation and policies they have put forward. It would be disingenuous to continue discussions that this government has effectively terminated by failing to be able to respond to questions and concerns we have raised. At the end of the day this is all about a piece of legislation the government has sought the Coalition’s support for unamended. Their view is their legislation, which seeks a blank cheque from the Parliament, that abolishes human rights protections in the Migration Act, should be supported unamended. Without that support the government is unprepared to support any of the proven policies that the Coalition had while in government. So unless the government is able to put forward an alternative way forward to this legislation then they have a clear choice – to support the amendment of the Coalition that enables offshore processing in 148 countries around the world including on Nauru and including on Manus Island. If they want to insist on their legislation being passed unamended well they should go and talk to the Greens. They know Bob Brown’s phone number they used it to form government, they should use it again and make this a matter of confidence for the government in order to pursue the legislation they insist on. The government have options. They have the options of adopting our proven measures or continue adopting the policies of the Greens of onshore release. This is where the government has the opportunity to make a decision and they must do so. We can’t allow discussions to continue where the government is unprepared to legitimately address the concerns we have raised. If we prolonged those discussions we would not be being upfront with the Australian people and prolonging those would be nothing more than a political stunt. So what I will be doing at this press conference is releasing the correspondence between Mr Bowen and myself over the past month the same way Mr Bowen released letters when things reached a critical point between the Prime Minister, Acting Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition because I think it is important the Australian people know where we are at. If the government wants to come forward with an alternative legislative approach then of course the Coalition would be always prepared to consider what that proposal is but the government have not done that, their policies remain as they have put them over the last couple of months and as a result the Coalition’s position obviously remains where it stands. It is up to the government to act on these issues, they are the government, they are the ones who have to take the measures available to them – offshore processing on Nauru, temporary protection visas and of course our unchanged policy of turning boats back where it is safe to do so – all remain open to the government. These are the policies that worked and are all the policies that this government abandoned.

QUESTION:

Mr Morrison do you think the Australian public want to see more flexibility from the Coalition? You have your policies and quite rightly you are standing by them but all the time the boats are going to continue to arrive while this impasse remains, don’t you think the Australian public want to see some compromise?

MORRISON:

I think the Australian people want to see boats stop coming to Australia. I think the Australian people want to see good policy. The government are the ones who abandoned good policy, abolished the measures that worked and refused to restore them. They expect their governments to take decisions and act and not seek to blame the Opposition or other parties for their own inadequacies. Of course we would like to see these policies restored but it is a false premise that the government cannot restore offshore processing in Nauru – they can do it today. They can restore TPVs. The suggestion that we have to support bad policy, policy that we have always opposed, in order for the government to restore proven and good policy is a false notion. It’s another excuse from this government not to act and it is incumbent on this government to act. We engaged in these discussions over a month and there has been some good faith dialogue over that time but it is clear the government has no intention of changing their legislation. They want a blank cheque and it is something the Coalition didn’t support then and we obviously can’t support now without amendment.

QUESTION:

Inaudible

MORRISON:

I had written to the Minister late last week and set out our concerns once more. He had written to me, as the letters demonstrate. It was when I got a response from the Minister last night which once again refused to deal with the problems of their policies they were seeking support for, that demonstrated that prolonging the discussions would be disingenuous for the government and I think the Opposition. The government’s decision not to address satisfactorily the issues we had consistently raised, particularly in relation the legislation which they demanded in unamended form made it very clear the government was not prepared to make those changes so they effectively terminated those discussions when they made that response last night . I think it is important we are upfront with the Australian people. We shouldn’t be creating false impressions here about what is going on. The government shouldn’t be seeking to create or prolong these impressions, they should act and make decisions.

QUESTION:

Inaudible

MORRISON:

I wrote to the government - you have the letters before you - the government responded last night.

QUESTION:

Just to clarify is the Coalition’s policy to send back all the boats?

MORRISON:

Our policy is unchanged. It is the same policy we have had for over a decade. We will turn boats back where it is safe to do so.

QUESTION:

And when is it safe to do so?

MORRISON:

Well those circumstances relate to safety at sea and those matters that are well canvassed and I think it is important to note that we did this in government effectively, the Navy implemented this policy in government consistent with those obligations of safety of life at sea, they did it consistent with our international obligations more broadly. The only illegal policy being put forward in this debate is the Malaysian people swap. That is an illegal policy under Australian law according to the High Court and has been rejected by both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Yesterday I note the Prime Minister said she couldn’t proceed with a policy if it didn’t have the support of the House of Representatives. This policy does not have the support of the House of Representatives but apparently this is the policy she wishes to pursue yet she is happy to relinquish her deal with Andrew Wilkie in exactly the same circumstances.

QUESTION:

Inaudible

MORRISON:

Well I was happy to discuss these matters and I stress these were not negotiations they were not discussions. We made it very clear when we entered the room last year, Julie Bishop and I, that we were not there to horse trade, the government like to go into all sorts of deals and we know those deals only last as long as their political interest persists. We have always been awake to this government, that they don’t live up to deals and that wasn’t the basis upon which we entered discussions. We entered discussions to make it clear what we would support and the problems with the measures they were seeking support for. They have been unable or unwilling to address the problems we have with the things they want support for so obviously our position remains where it is. We remain open to them putting forward an alternative amendment to the legislation which is before the House and that invitation is issued openly to the government but there has been no indication they are prepared to consider such change.

QUESTION:

Inaudible

MORRISON:

Well of course not. I wrote to the Minister last week setting out our position very clearly and he responded yesterday.

QUESTION:

Inaudible

MORRISON:

Well no, as the correspondence shows there was a letter to us yesterday and a letter back to him last night.

QUESTION:

Mr Morrison specifically what would it take to get the Coalition back around the table, I mean, Nauru would be a key?

MORRISON:

There is this false premise that there needs to be some sort of policy swap that needs to take place in order to move forward. What is needed is good policy. The government needs to put forward good policy. We will support good policy, the Malaysian people swap is bad policy, it is cruel policy. The government is seeking to abolish all the protections in the Migration Act as a blank cheque not just for the Malaysia deal but for whatever arrangement any future government might want to come up with. We don’t think that is responsible law, that’s why we can’t support it. The government has not proposed any change to that law and we have been crystal clear with what our problems are with that law so that is a question for the government to answer.

END

Speech : Transcript - 2GB Morning Show

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 13:00:00 GMT

Speech

Transcript - 2GB Morning Show

Tuesday 24th January 2012

SUBJECTS: Government’s proposed offshore processing legislation, Department of Immigration and Citizenship gridlocked by government’s failed border policies

E and OE

HADLEY:
The Shadow Immigration Minister Scott Morrison’s on the line. G’day Scott.

MORRISON:
G’day Ray.

HADLEY:
You’ve officially ended negotiations?

MORRISON:
Well that’s really for the government to do but I mean the bottom line is this, Ray, we never thought and we’ve never trusted this government that they can enter into a deal. We didn’t go into this process to do any deal –

HADLEY:
Ask Andrew Wilkie.

MORRISON:
Ask Andrew Wilkie, ask the Australian people on the carbon tax, ask Kevin Rudd – he knows all about that from Julia Gillard so the purpose here was never to have some deal. That’s what the Labor party does and they never live up to them. What we said we would do is we’ll tell you what we’ll support and we’ll tell you the problems with what you’d like us to support and we made that clear to them. The government came back over the course of the summer and they were just unable to address the problems that they had with the Malaysian people swap which is frankly the only illegal policy running around at the moment and that was struck down by the High Court and rejected by the Parliament and on the issue of the legislation, they wanted to pass a law, Ray, which abolishes all human rights protections in the Migration Act for offshore processing and we said if that’s your condition, then we’ve always said we oppose that. They didn’t offer anything in terms of any alternate amendment to the one we put up which said it had to be in one of either 148 countries. So I just didn’t think that with the government taking that position, that either of us could be upfront that these discussions were heading somewhere and so through their response last night that they couldn’t address the things we’d raised, I thought that to disingenuously prolong this would be nothing other than a political stunt.

HADLEY:
Were there any discussions about temporary protection visas in your discussions with Chris Bowen?

MORRISON:
At first they said they wouldn’t – there’s no way. Then they said we’ll have a review for twelve months and we’ll look at doing it after twelve months and we just said, seriously, I mean that was nothing more than a diversion. They have no intention of reintroducing temporary protection visas, I don’t believe they have any intention of introducing Nauru unless they get their blank cheque for legislation in the Parliament which they know we can’t support and they certainly aren’t going to turn boats back which we did in government, it worked and it had the desired effect consistent with our obligations in international law and the navy did a fantastic job in doing it.

HADLEY:
Given the Prime Minister has gone back on a written promise to Andrew Wilkie, were the discussions among you and your leader that even getting things in writing would not be sufficient in relation to promises made by this government to you?

MORRISON:
Well it was basically a non-starter because we know that you can’t trust this government on a deal and so there was no point in having a deal and frankly I don’t think you should horse trade on issues of national security, the government should just implement good policy. I mean, this notion that they can’t implement Nauru unless we support Malaysia is a furphy. They could implement Nauru today. It can be done under existing law and if they support our amendment, they can get a better sense of comfort. They can introduce TPVs today. Kevin Rudd said he’d turn the boats back and welshed on that within months. They have the measures available, they don’t want to do them, they just should be honest about it and say what they always wanted to do and that is to back the Greens.

HADLEY:
Now in relation to the number of boats that have arrived since I came back from leave, or since the 1 January effectively, am I right in saying we’re in the middle of the monsoon season and traditionally and historically, January’s not a big month for boat arrivals. When will we start to see the flow continue to the levels it was late last year?

MORRISON:
Well the only deterrent offered at the moment is the weather because this government doesn’t have one and I suspect we would start to see that pick up later in February but it’s hard to know Ray. This January’s a little more than last January but a lot less than the previous January and the smugglers know this government’s measure and their business is uninterrupted but really at the end of the day, if they want their legislation unamended as they have insisted, well they should go and talk to the Greens. The Greens put them in government – that’s who they’re there with as an alliance partner, they should make it a matter of confidence with the Greens and the Independents and they should insist on that. But if they want to insist on things they know the Coalition can’t support, then you know I think they’re obviously barking up the wrong tree.

HADLEY:
In general terms and this is I guess anecdotal evidence of the Department of Immigration and you obviously get a lot of correspondence from people who have arrived here and wish to become permanent residents or citizens and they wish to bring people from other parts of the world via reunion policies and the like, it appears to me from the level of correspondence I get that it’s taking the Department of Immigration a lot, lot longer to process what are the normal enquiries and applications they receive.

MORRISON:
That’s true.

HADLEY:
And would that be because of the amount of time they are now spending on people arriving here illegally via boats off north western Australia?

MORRISON:
I believe that’s true as well. The Department has been completely gridlocked, absolutely –

HADLEY:
- and overwhelmed by work.

MORRISON:
Overwhelmed by the government’s border protection failures and that’s not their fault, they didn’t insist on those policies, that’s the government decision – they’ve had to deal with it and it’s been chaos. The cost we’ve talked about many times and sadly at the end of all of this there is inevitably tragedy.

HADLEY:
OK and it’s going to continue through the year by the look of it.

MORRISON:
Well it’s for them – they’re the government at the end of the day, they’ve got to stop blaming other people for their own problems, stop trying to deal their way out of every political problem and just put back the policies that worked.

HADLEY:
OK thanks for your time Scott Morrison.

MORRISON:
Thanks Ray.

HADLEY:
Shadow Immigration Minister Scott Morrison talking to us.

Ends

Speech : Transcript - Sky News AM Agenda

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 13:00:00 GMT

Speech

Transcript - Sky News AM Agenda

Tuesday 24th January 2012

SUBJECTS: Government’s proposed offshore processing legislation, turning boats back where it is safe to do so, Dr Charlie Teo comments

E and OE

LIPSON:
Shadow Immigration spokesperson Scott Morrison joins me now from Sydney. Scott Morrison, do you expect these talks to continue?

MORRISON:
Well ultimately that’s a matter for the government but the Coalition entered into these discussions, not negotiations, in the spirit of making very clear what policies we support and the problems we saw with the government’s policies. Now we’ve always known that this government can’t be trusted on any deals – Andrew Wilkie found that out recently and of course the Australian people found that out over the carbon tax. This was a process about making it clear where we stood, the policies that we’d support, namely the reintroduction of offshore processing in Nauru without condition, the reintroduction of temporary protection visas immediately. Of course we would like to see boats turned back where it is safe to do so – the government has always been clear that they’ve rejected that. We’re also making it clear to the government what our problems were and have always been with what is the only illegal policy being pursued and that is the government’s Malaysian people swap and with their legislation. If the government is able to fix the problems with Malaysia and fix the problems with their legislation, well we’ve always been open to that but so far we haven’t seen anything of that nature.

LIPSON:
Letters published in The Australian newspaper today show that the government offered case workers a hotline for asylum seekers in Malaysia and also a parliamentary committee to monitor their treatment – why wasn’t that enough?

MORRISON:
Well it isn’t enough. When you’re going to basically put people in Malaysia as an offshore processing arrangement where there are no controls or protections available to them, the thing that they have to rely on is the protection of the law. Now the government is unable to ensure that those protections in law in Malaysia are in place and these people would be left completely exposed. Now I’ve been to Malaysia, I’ve seen that first hand, I know that’s the case and the Coalition is also not prepared to agree with the government that we should abolish all human rights protections for offshore processing in the Migration Act. Now the government has been unable to fix those problems to date. What they should do is simply restore what they abolished. They remain absolutely recalcitrant about acknowledging the failure of their policies and the need to restore what they abolished and I think that’s what the Australian people expect of them to do.

LIPSON:
You’re demanding that Malaysia or at least that asylum seekers are sent to countries that are signatories to the UN Convention. Do you risk being seen as hypocritical when Nauru was not a signatory under the Howard government and your policy is to tow boats back to Indonesia which is not a signatory and when the very act of towing back boats could be in breach of Australia’s obligations under the Convention?

MORRISON:
Well I think - on the third point, that’s just not the case. We put those policies in place of turning boats back where it’s safe to do so, which is our policy, no change to that. That was done when we were in government, we did it in accordance with our international obligations and international law. Now secondly on the issue of towing boats back that is not offshore processing. That is the same process as preventing those boats leaving Indonesia. People who are prevented from leaving Indonesia find themselves in exactly the same situation as people who are returned to Indonesia. It’s not offshore processing. On the first point, in Nauru we had people under care 24 hours a day 7 days a week. They went to proper schools, they got access, direct access to health care. That doesn’t happen in Malaysia. They are basically let loose and are completely vulnerable to the circumstances they find themselves in. Now in those circumstances, they need the protection of the law and Nauru of course as we now know and as we encouraged them to do, has signed the Refugee Convention so the government has no excuse but to implement that policy. It shouldn’t be part of some grubby policy swap or deal, they should do it because they think it’s the right thing to do and they should get on with it.

LIPSON:
OK we’re short on time but just to be clear, you’ve mentioned it a couple of times but has your policy on towing back the boats changed in any way?

MORRISON:
No. No, it is exactly the same policy that we’ve held for a decade. It was the policy we implemented in government that worked. Now –

LIPSON:
So the reporting of it as a blanket towing back the boats, towing all the boats back, that’s been misreporting has it?

MORRISON:
Well I’ll leave others to commentate on how things are written up. Our policy is to turn boats back where it is safe to do so. That has always been our policy, it remains our policy. It remains a centrepiece of what we think is necessary to stop the boats coming to Australia and to fix up this mess of Labor’s own creation because Kevin Rudd abolished the Pacific Solution and temporary protection visas and Julia Gillard has gone now even further than that to abolish everything that was left of what John Howard put in place.

LIPSON:
Just very briefly Charlie Teo in his Australia Day Address last night called for an end to the politicisation of the asylum seeker issue, he wants to see a bipartisan approach. What’s your response to him?

MORRISON:
Well firstly in relation to his more broader comments, I think Charlie Teo is a great Australian and I commend him for the speech that he has made. He is clearly someone who has done incredibly well in Australia as many Australians have and he appreciates the great nation in which we live as we all do and I support many, if not all of the things he’s raised in his speech. And one of the things I do like about what Charlie has said is he hasn’t called Australians racists or engaged in any of that sort of rhetoric. What he’s done is pointed out what we all know – that we have to be eternally vigilant on these issues, we always have to take stands against racism and the Coalition has always supported that.

LIPSON:
Scott Morrison, thanks very much for your time.

Ends

Media Release : Opinion piece- The Australian

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 13:00:00 GMT

Australia is arguably the world's most successful immigration nation. However, we cannot take our continued success for granted or be misguided about the reasons for our success. We must continue to decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come.

Our focus on merit-based, non-discriminatory and orderly immigration, and the values that underpin these measures, has helped us overcome the barriers of diverse nationalities and ethnicities to create a nation with a clear sense of national identity.

The Liberal Party has been in the vanguard of these efforts and remains so today. Robert Menzies embraced the ambitious and positive program of postwar immigration and signed the Refugee Convention. Harold Holt abolished the White Australia policy. Malcolm Fraser established SBS, migrant resource services, English language instruction and the special offshore humanitarian program.

Opposed by Gough Whitlam, Labor and the unions, Fraser also responded to a regional refugee crisis, resettling more than 50,000 Indo-Chinese refugees, while stopping boats coming to Australia by establishing offshore processing in places such as Galang in Indonesia.

John Howard increased skilled migration from less than 30 per cent to almost 70 per cent of the permanent program, while doubling the size of this program and halving community concerns about immigration levels being too high.

On our borders, Howard also stopped the boats, while resettling about 150,000 refugee and humanitarian entrants. When he left office, one in 400 protection visas went to those who had arrived by boat. Today that figure is one in five.

Today we face new challenges.

The level of social dislocation arising from Europe's failed immigration policies is now obvious to all and is concerning many Australians. The most serious example is the rise in home-grown terrorism from isolated ethnic and religious communities.

However, we must be careful to address our own challenges, not appropriate those of other continents. Germany and Britain did not follow Australia's planned migration path and have paid the price. In both cases migrants have significantly higher rates of unemployment and lower skills and qualifications than the balance of the population.

By contrast, in Australia we have chosen migrants who are more likely to be successful.

In Australia, our migrant population and their children have achieved equal or better in education, unemployment, labour force participation, median full-time earnings and even incarceration, compared with the rest of the community.

Of course, we should have policies that promote acceptance, reject discrimination, provide support and recognise our diverse backgrounds. We should continue to be conscious of removing barriers to participation in the Australian community. In fact, we should be more insistent about that participation. Our first priority must be to protect the integrity of our immigration program.

Immigration is not a welfare program; it is a nation-building program that seeks to add to our national wellbeing. This program must be driven by our national interest, in selecting those most able to make a contribution.

The government's failures on our borders remain a priority in restoring the integrity of our immigration program. However, we must also start to deal with the growth in temporary migration that is now the dominant source of net overseas migration to Australia. We learned many years ago that capital was mobile and we adjusted our system of financial regulation and policy frameworks to take advantage of this change. Today, people are mobile, for study and employment in particular.

We need policies that can embrace this opportunity, while ensuring we retain the integrity of our immigration program, and ensure that those who come to Australia as workers or students can fully participate in their Australian experience and engage our way of life.

A further challenge is to acknowledge the new fault line for social cohesion in Australia. This was once defined by race, nationality and ethnicity; it is now becoming religion.

This new challenge is different. We are dealing with the borderless, non-racial, ethnically non-specific and non-language-dependent realm of personal beliefs and values. Our response should be the same - remaining true to the values, systems and institutions that have served our nation well. These include freedom of religion. The only constraint Australia places on the practice of religion is that believers respect the rule of one law, the institutions that uphold this law and the values that we live by and aspire to as a nation.

In my experience religion should not be an excuse for separation. People of faith are typically committed to the welfare of others, the primacy of family and the importance of community. We need to focus more on these commonalities. We also need to avoid making exceptions for the differences and encourage a one-rule-for-all approach.

For example, I am opposed to the banning of any form of religious dress. Equally, religious dress should not be afforded any special status or exemption under the law, especially for identity or security purposes. Common sense should prevail.

For the past 60 years we have found a better way to make Australia work as an immigration nation. It is not perfect, but it's better than most.

Our liberal democracy; our merit-based, skills-focused immigration program; the primacy of English as our only national language and the universal embrace of accessible and enduring Australian national values constitute our better way.

We must not drift from this path in the face of new challenges or policy fashions.

Speech : Transcript - 6PR Paul Murray Show

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 13:00:00 GMT

Speech

Transcript - 6PR Paul Murray Show

Monday 23rd January 2012

SUBJECTS: turning boats back where it is safe to do so

E and OE

MURRAY:
So let’s talk about this Opposition policy on Indonesia and boat people coming from there. Scott Morrison joins me now. Morning Scott.

MORRISON:
G’day Paul.

MURRAY:
We’ll get to the bit about turning the boats back a little later but I wanted to start off with– you probably heard that preface I was saying – what Tony Abbott told Paul Kelly about his desire to go to Indonesia – the first country he would visit if he became Prime Minister and say that we’re no longer going to passively accept the arrival of asylum seeker boats. It seems to me that this is going to the nub of the question here that’s never really raised publicly – and that is why Indonesia accepts these people through its borders in the first place.

MORRISON:
And that’s the case and these people are on Indonesian flagged vessels and an Indonesian flagged vessel returning to Indonesian waters is an appropriate thing to occur but the point about the relationship I think is critical here. I mean, we are committed to a very strong and robust relationship with Indonesia, I mean it’s very important to our national interest. Frankly what happens in Jakarta is in many cases far more important than what’s happening in Geneva where Kevin Rudd’s focus seems to be all the time. And we want to make sure we have that strong relationship and a strong relationship respects and understands the core priorities of both nations. Now we will make it obviously very clear that people smuggling and border control is a core interest for Australia and we’ll be acting in accordance with that core interest and similarly the Indonesians I’m sure need guaranties of things like food supply in their relationship with Australia which was put under significant threat by the Gillard government’s outrageous acts over the live cattle trade.

MURRAY:
Scott, do we have an open dialogue with the Indonesians about why they accept these people through their borders? They must know that there are huge numbers of people coming from the Middle East, transiting – they come by air as I understand it in the main to Indonesia, they transit through their airports, through their immigration department, I mean are they ever asked why are you here?

MORRISON:
Well not only that but the announcements of just a few weeks ago where the visa process or entry process for particularly people coming out of Pakistan and Afghanistan has been eased further by the Indonesians in recent weeks and that is of great concern to us and of course people coming to Indonesia are not coming from the Middle East looking to stay in Indonesia, they’re looking to come to Australia. And we’ve been a big problem for Indonesia in this respect because in softening our policies, we’ve created this magnet. Now that’s a problem for Indonesia as much as it is for us so what we’re going to say is look we’re going to fix things up on our side of the fence, which the Gillard government hasn’t done, but equally we will be looking in the spirit of partnership and cooperation to ensure that we can do more in Indonesia to stop vessels leaving Indonesia and if they leave Indonesia, that they go back.

MURRAY:
Scott, is it true that - Indonesia’s the biggest Muslim country in the world, 200 million, over 200 million – is it true that Indonesia’s borders are totally porous for Muslims, that if you are Muslim, no questions are asked when you enter Indonesia?

MORRISON:
There are preferential arrangements, that is true and that has also been the case for many years in Malaysia which is why Malaysia was also a convenient point of entry into the region and the issues of border control both in Malaysia and Indonesia are critical in addressing the issue of border patrol for Australia. I mean, if we can work with the Indonesians and Malaysians to strengthen their borders, then that strengthens our borders as well, that’s in everybody’s interests and not just in the realm of people smuggling. It’s important in terms of regional security more broadly. I mean the suggestion that there is somehow a regional refugee crisis to which Australia has to respond is a nonsense. I mean, Afghanistan and Pakistan and Iran are not in our region. When we had a genuine regional refugee crisis it was in the late 1970s and 1980s and that’s when we accepted over 50,000 Indochinese refugees and we got involved in all sorts of regional processing arrangements to address that. That was the right response but this isn’t the same issue.

MURRAY:
If the Indonesian’s bona fides were correct, their intention say that they will help us deal with this problem. If their bona fides were true, they’d be turning these people around at the immigration counter of the Jakarta airport, surely?

MORRISON:
Well I think that there’s been some success with that in Malaysia, for example Paul. I’d like to see similar success in Indonesia and I think they’re the sort of objectives we’d have to have in a relationship but it’s important that, in that relationship, you’re doing everything you can on your side of the fence to demonstrate your bona fides and that’s not what we’ve been doing. We’ve been creating a problem, I mean Australia doesn’t have a regional refugee problem – the region has an Australia problem. That has to be fixed first and I think that enables us to get on to the important things we have to do in the region and those regional issues are as important, if not more, at the end of the day.

MURRAY:
If we could just get on to turning around the boats which has been a contentious policy but you say that the Howard government was successful I think on seven occasions of turning boats around on the high seas and sending them back to Indonesia. The only thing I can see particularly new in what Tony Abbott said is that if he was in government, he would attempt to turn around all the boats.

MORRISON:
Well that’s not exactly what he said. I mean, you’re right in your first summary and that is – this has been our policy for a decade and it hasn’t changed and we will turn back boats where it is safe to do so. Now that instruction to our border command and the navy will be universal – we will be seeking to turn back any and every boat that came towards Australia where it was safe to do so. Now that is a statement of resolve. The Prime Minister will find every excuse known to anyone to try and find a reason not to do this and this is the problem the government has with border protection. They go looking for excuses not to do things, rather than looking for reasons and resolve to do things and that’s why our border protection has become so weak. That’s why almost 15,000 people have turned up on their watch.

MURRAY:
Critics of that policy say that if we had an expanded patrol boat force, which we would need to do if the intention was to turn all the boats around, it would be an invitation to the skippers of those boats that the minute they see an Australian vessel, just to scuttle their vessel – scuttle their boat.

MORRISON:
Well this happened last time and our resolve was the same and what occurred on occasions last time was that people were transferred to an Australian vessel while their boat was repaired and they were put back on that boat and taken back to outside Indonesian waters where they returned to Indonesia so there are no new challenges here. The challenges and the difficulties are the same. The only difference is we have a government who’s not prepared to do it. Now if you follow the government’s logic and the Coalition’s policy, this government is not prepared to return boats to Indonesia where it is safe to do so. We are and that’s the point we’ve been making loud and clear to the people smugglers. If there’s a change of government, they will know this has changed. We’re no longer a soft touch and they’re going to be dealing with a government just like the Howard Government with strong resolve and the ticker to back it up.

MURRAY:
Who has the final say in whether a boat is turned around on the high seas? Say – is it the mandate of the captain of an Australia navy vessel to decide if that could be done safely?

MORRISON:
Well the chain of command operates and the chain of command in all cases always ends with the government, whether that’s the Minister for Defence or the Minister for Home Affairs under the current government’s arrangements, depends on the nature of the vessel at the time – that is, the nature of the Australian vessel. But the normal processes of situation reports being provided by the commander at sea and so on is followed, that all goes back into the central command centre in ultimately Darwin and Canberra and ultimately decisions are taken. And decisions have to be taken but what we’re saying is this is the policy. It’s the policy and our defence forces and in particular, obviously the navy, has a proud record of implementing government policy.

MURRAY:
I said there and you didn’t contest that I think there were seven boats turned around during the time of the Howard government –

MORRISON:
Yep.

MURRAY:
If that was your policy, why were so few boats turned around?

MORRISON:
Because they stopped coming. Because the policy was successful. It’s the same reason why there was no one in detention centres and we weren’t building thousands of beds in detention centres as this government has done. We were closing them down because the policy was effective, together with temporary protection visas which is an important part of Paul’s [Kelly] story on the weekend. Re-stating and reinforcing the fact that it’s just not about offshore processing, you need to be able to turn boats back where the circumstances allow, you need to be able to ensure that those who may get through all the hurdles and may indeed be legitimate refugees, the best they will get in Australia is a temporary protection visa if they seek to come to Australia illegally.

MURRAY:
Finally Scott on the diplomatic approach which I started this interview on – why would Tony Abbott be successful in getting the Indonesians to stop their borders being so porous when others have failed?

MORRISON:
Well for the same reason that John Howard was successful. The challenge with the Indonesian government back then was no different in fact in many ways under a different President at the time in Indonesia it was harder. It’s all a matter about how you go about these things and looking for robust, strong relationships where Australia is very clear about our interests and very clear about the actions we’re going to take rather than the sort of wishy washy, hard to follow, chop and change process that this government has – again, best illustrated by that debacle over the live cattle trade which was nothing more than a great offence to the nature of the relationship with Indonesia which Paul Kelly noted President Yudhoyono said in a note back. I mean, this went in violation of the nature of this arrangement so the inconsistency of our government I think has been appalling, I think they’re focus on things in Geneva over things in our own region, in particular in Jakarta, has been a real problem and I think we’re paying the price for that.

MURRAY:
Thanks for talking to us.

MORRISON:
Thanks a lot Paul.

MURRAY:
Scott Morrison, Opposition’s Immigration spokesman.

Ends

Speech : Transcript - Doorstop interview

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 13:00:00 GMT

Speech

Transcript - Doorstop interview

Saturday 21st January 2012

SUBJECTS: turning boats back where it is safe to do so, temporary protection visas

E and OE

MORRISON:
No one should be under any doubt, least of all people smugglers, that a Coalition government will apply the policy of turning boats back to every boat that comes to Australia and we’ll do that not only in our own waters but in our contiguous zone and if necessary, on the high seas. Where it is safe to turn those boats around, it will be done.

That is our clear commitment – it has been our clear commitment for more than a decade. That, combined with temporary protection visas which have also been Coalition policy for more than a decade, are critical components to any regime designed to stop boats coming to Australia. Offshore processing is equally an important part of this policy mix and these three things combined together is what the Coalition believes is absolutely and uncompromisingly necessary to ensure that we can fix this mess that the Labor government has created by abolishing these critical policies. While the government says it supports offshore processing, it completely rejects the issue of returning boats and temporary protection visas. The Coalition believes that with offshore processing, the protections – human rights protections- must also be in place for offshore processing as we did when we operated at Nauru and at Manus Island. The government wants to abolish those protections; the Coalition has consistently said we won’t support the abolition of those protections. So no one should be under any doubt – the Coalition’s position is clear, our resolve is strong and it is clear that a Coalition government could put in place the policies that are available to stop the boats.

QUESTION [inaudible]

MORRISON:
Well this is about restoring policies that the government abolished. The Coalition has always sought to see our policies restored. The government continues in absolute denial about the decision of Kevin Rudd to abolish the Pacific Solution, to abolish temporary protection visas and Julia Gillard has removed every last remaining brick in John Howard’s wall of border protection. That’s why the boats keep coming. This government has all of those measures available to them and has resisted their reintroduction with more and more excuses every day.

QUESTION [inaudible]

MORRISON:
It’s a policy designed to address a critical national security issue for Australia –the protection of our borders. It’s the first duty of government so the Coalition will always do what’s right for our national security interests to protect our borders and the Australian people trust us on that. They trust us completely on border protection and the reason for that is we say what we mean, we mean what we say. The people smugglers know that, the Australian people know that.

QUESTION [inaudible]

MORRISON:
Well I’ll leave the commentary to others. Our interest is in good policy and we’re not going to be exchanging bad policy for good policy – the government has available to them clear measures to deal with this crisis of their own making and they reject those measures on a daily basis.

QUESTION:
How is it that these boats are a security threat?

MORRISON:
Well a country’s obligation and this government’s obligation is to protect the security of our borders. That is a fundamental objective of government. We can’t just have people turning up uninvited without valid permits for entry. I mean, that is a government’s job and any breach along those lines is a compromise of that process.

[Audio ends]

Media Release : Opinion piece - The Australian

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 13:00:00 GMT

The news of another tragedy off the Indonesian coast is of great concern to us all, and sadly no surprise. However, public statements of condolence after the fact, while appropriate and genuine, will not fix the problem.

The Coalition has consistently warned this government that weakening the measures it inherited from the Howard government would risk the cost, chaos and tragedy that have resulted.

At no point has Labor acknowledged its error in abandoning these policies that worked; nor has it ever countenanced restoring any of these measures.

The government replaced a solution with a problem and engaged in a series of spectacular and incompetent policy failures that have only made matters worse.

If the government is serious about working with the Coalition to fix this mess then it needs to start listening to what we have been trying to get across for years.

As Khalid Koser, from the Brookings Institution, told the Lowy Institute last week, the government's reluctance to reconsider the reintroduction of proven measures such as Nauru for offshore processing defies explanation.

The Coalition has stood by the policies we have held for a decade for no other reason than because we know they work and we believe they are the right response.

We seek the re-establishment of offshore processing in a country where proper protections can be up in place, namely Nauru. Those who are not refugees should be returned to their home countries. Almost one in three people who went through the Pacific Solution returned home.

Fewer than 2 per cent of arrivals under this government have been returned. Irregular maritime arrivals found to be refugees should be limited to temporary protection visas, denying them access to the family reunion program. And we should turn boats back where it is safe to do so.

If the government is serious about working with the Coalition, it must immediately indicate a willingness to put these proven solutions back on the table; otherwise it's all just talk.

The opposition rightly rejected the government's Malaysia Solution because the protections failed to measure up to those the Coalition required and established for Nauru and Manus Island.

As has been well documented, people sent to Malaysia are at risk of considerable abuse. This will occur through insufficient support for accommodation, education and healthcare or wrongful detention, where the risk of caning remains a possibility. Where these abuses occur, there is no legal remedy available to redress them.

The need for the government to provide exemptions for transfers to Malaysia because of inadequate protections creates an alternative product for people-smugglers to target unaccompanied minors, many of whom will be able to bypass the arrangement.

The quota of 800 people can also be overwhelmed by the people-smugglers and there is no plan B for after the quota is reached. The government has admitted that plan is good for only 10 boats. The events of this month demonstrate how quickly this can be overtaken.

Finally, there is the simple fact that a five-for-one swap is just a bad deal for Australia, placing even more pressure on a resettlement program that the Richmond report advised the government just last week was already under stress. This is irresponsible.

It is for these reasons that the Coalition, and many other experts in this area, rejected the government's Malaysia Solution as bad policy.

The Coalition has received no response from the government to our concerns; just an arrogant demand that the deal be approved without amendment, which brings us to the government's flawed legislation.

Instead of putting forward a bill that would require government backbenchers to vote for a Malaysian people-swap deal they find abhorrent, the government has demanded a legislative blank cheque that leaves this decision to others to make behind closed doors.

This government is demanding the abolition of all protections for offshore processing in the Migration Act. No government should have such unfettered powers where people lives are concerned.

Following the High Court decision striking down the Malaysia Solution, the Coalition has proposed the Refugee Convention as a more objective test of whether protections are in place in a particular country where offshore processing might occur.

Julia Gillard supported such a test before the election last year and now refuses to make it law.

I note that the government has been willing to make any number of concessions to the Greens and independents on matters before the parliament to secure their support. This has even included repudiation of election commitments, such as the carbon tax. It is therefore disappointing that the government is not prepared to demonstrate that same flexibility by supporting our amendment to retain important human rights protections in the Migration Act.

Finally there is the government's most recent decision. When forced to choose between the Coalition's policies on border protection or the Greens, it went with the Greens and implemented onshore release. This provides early release into the community with benefits payments and work rights or into community homes, regardless of whether a person's refugee claim has been accepted.

In the three weeks since that decision was taken, more than 1000 people have sought to come to Australia by boat. That is more than twice the rate of arrivals that was occurring in the six weeks before this decision, following the government's withdrawal of its Malaysian people swap from the parliament.

Onshore release has super-sized the people-smugglers' product. The Coalition is not surprised that the government is now confronting a further crisis of illegal boat arrivals of its own making. The Coalition also needs no reminder of the threats ahead.

If the government wishes to engage the Coalition on these matters, then there is clear road map for it to do so.

This begins by being prepared to acknowledge its failure by putting forward a new proposal that addresses the consistent concerns the Coalition has raised. The government has steadfastly refused to make such an offer.

Speech : Transcript - Doorstop interview

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 13:00:00 GMT

Speech

Transcript - Doorstop interview

Tuesday 20th December 2011

Subject: Coalition stands ready to meet with the government to consider a specific border protection policy

EandOE

MORRISON:
The Coalition has, always and remains, open to discussions with the government on the issue of border protection. At no stage, contrary to the suggestions made by the Minister, has the Coalition rejected any discussions. But there must be something to talk about. The Minister quoted earlier from letters but he wasn’t fulsome in his quotes of those letters and you all have copies of those letters I understand. But in three separate responses from Mr Abbott, he made it crystal clear – he said “if you do have a specific proposal to make and would care to do so in writing, my colleagues and I would be prepared to consider it. That was in response to the Prime Minister’s first letter. In response to the Deputy Prime Minister and Acting Prime Minister’s letter he said again “again I reiterate the Coalition’s readiness to consider a specific proposal in writing from the government” and again today Mr Abbott has said “the Opposition stands ready to meet with the government to consider a specific policy proposal provided in writing by the government”.

It took 24 boats and nine weeks for the government to even approach the Coalition on these matters and still they remain completely intransigent in considering any change or any alternative to the ultimatum they put to us when Parliament last sat. Over that period of time Parliament indeed rose, over that period of time the government also had the numbers in the House of Representatives to have their measures at least voted on and with the numbers after their arrangement with the Speaker. They chose not to do so. They chose instead to take the matter to their national conference rather than taking it to the national Parliament.

Our message to the government is simple. Put forward a proposal and we’ll sit down and talk. This is a very reasonable thing, I think, for the Coalition to put forward and it’s necessary because on previous occasions, this Minister has been unable to take positions to his own Cabinet and secure the support of his own Prime Minister. We know that this Minister suggested in the Cabinet meeting that took place nine weeks ago, that the government should be considering looking at the proposals that had been put forward by the Coalition. That was shouted down by the Prime Minister and at that time you’ll recall I suggested the Minister really should make a decision about whether he could continue in that role when clearly there was such a big gap between him and where the Prime Minister stood. So it’s important for the Coalition to have from the government a clear proposal that we can deal with. Talks will go nowhere unless this government can actually put forward a proposal. Now this government I think has some serious problems in putting forward a proposal. I think there are real divisions within this government and the Coalition is not prepared to let this government get away with an excuse for not forming a proposal simply because it can’t agree amongst itself. It is, I think, a very reasonable thing for the Coalition to expect the government who is seeking our support to give us something to consider rather than what sadly, unless the government is prepared to change its position, will likely be a photo opportunity of discussions which produce nothing. I think the Australian people clearly want some decisions, they clearly want some action and the way to achieve that for the government is to put forward, I think, a very clear proposal.

Let’s not forget this is a government that has said no to temporary protection visas. A government that has said no to restoring the Pacific Solution, a government that has said no to turning boats back where the circumstances permit. All of these things are critical elements of the policies that were successful under the Howard government. They’ve also said no to the amendments we put forward to their legislation that would allow offshore processing in 148 countries. They have said no to our request for a proposal. The only thing the government has said yes to is to agree with the policy of the Greens for onshore release which has seen more people arrive in the last three weeks than we’ve seen now for many, many years. This is a government whose onshore release policy was their decision when they were presented with a clear option for offshore processing. So this is a government that says they want offshore processing but when forced to a choice between the Coalition’s position on border protection and the Greens position on border protection, they opted for the Greens position of onshore release.

So it really is now for the government to put forward I think a clear proposal to the Coalition. Now the Coalition will accept any proposal from the government in strict confidence. This is not something we would be publicising if the government was prepared to give us a clear proposal. The Coalition for the past week has kept the discussions and the exchanges of letters between the Leader of the Opposition and the Prime Minister and acting Prime Minister completely in confidence. It is the government who chose today to release those letters because of their refusal to provide us with a proposal. I think that was an unfortunate development but we are prepared to honour, in the same way we have in the past week, accepting a proposal in confidence that would enable some discussions to take place. Now whether the government chooses to do that or not is a matter for them and we remain very open to receiving that proposal but there is one thing the Prime Minister can and must do immediately before we break for Christmas and that is to restore temporary protection visas. I think that would send a very clear message that this government is prepared to look at different alternatives, that this government is prepared to acknowledge that the reason we are in this mess of their making in the first place is because of the abandonment and abolition of the Howard Government’s measures and it will send a very clear message to the people smugglers that change is on its way. In the absence of that, then we are left with this mess of the government’s own making and their refusal to engage policies that are proven.

QUESTION:
Mr Abbott has refused to let you meet with Mr Bowen to negotiate on a position. He wants a proposal in writing, presumably for him to look at that policy proposal. Why is Mr Abbott unwilling to let you negotiate in this policy area?

MORRISON:
Well there’s nothing to negotiate because the government has no mandate to negotiate with the Coalition.
Mr Bowen has no authority from his own Prime Minister to consider any alternative. I mean, even today, I presume in this room, he was unable to commit to shifting the government’s ground one inch. Now you can’t have a negotiation or discussion with a party that is not prepared to make any changes. Those questions were put very directly to Mr Bowen today and he was unable to answer them. Now he has tried to make those changes possible before in Cabinet and it was refused by his own Prime Minister. It’s quite clear I think that the key obstacle here is Ms Gillard. She is the one refusing to put forward a proposal or countenance the restoration of any or all of the measures that previously worked.

QUESTION:
Have you expressed any reservations to Mr Abbott about his negativity on this issue and not letting you negotiate with Minister Bowen?

MORRISON:
No.

QUESTION:
Would the Coalition consider supporting Malaysia, the government’s preferred option, in exchange for some compromise measure like Nauru or TPVs or something like that?

MORRISON:
Well Paul we don’t have a proposal from the government and negotiating these things through hypotheticals put by journalists for proposals the government can’t even agree to make I don’t think is a reasonable expectation on the Coalition to respond to. The government has made no proposal and until we can look at a proposal, there is not much to talk about. I mean, all the expressions about working together and these things are fine in principle but they have to be backed up by something material, something of substance and this government has not put forward anything of substance.

QUESTION:
But in principle are you prepared to compromise in some way?

MORRISON:
Well what I’ve said clearly and what the Leader of the Opposition has said clearly is show us a proposal, put something on the table and we’ll sit down and talk.

QUESTION:
What’s the point of that when there’s no communication from the Coalition’s point of view that you are prepared to compromise?

MORRISON:
We’re not the government and I can’t sort of shadow box at proposals that haven’t been made and give a whole series of hypothetical responses. Once we have a proposal, we’re in a position to sit down with the government and provide a meaningful response and work through the issues. Until that happens, there is little the Coalition can proceed upon. Now I think we need to understand one clear point. There is a government and then there is an opposition. This is the government’s responsibility to initiate this process with a clear proposal. I think the government is trying to cut corners here, I think the government is trying to provide a smokescreen to avoid the need to actually deal with the hard discussions they have to have internally about how they fix this mess. Now the Coalition has had a clear view about how to fix this mess for ten years. We have held that position in season and out. It comes as no surprise to the government what our view is. But at the moment, they know what our view is, we know what their views is and the government’s made no indication they’re prepared to change their view.

QUESTION:
Mr Morrison I just wanted to clarify something Kirsty has asked, have you at any stage either verbally or in writing expressed any concern at all to Mr Abbott on the position the Coalition holds on this or the way the negotiations have taken place?

MORRISON:
Mr Abbott and I are one on these matters.

QUESTION:
Inaudible

MORRISON:
Again, that’s a matter for the government. They are the government; they are responsible for ensuring we can move forward in these matters. The government, if they wanted to, they could go to their alliance partners in the Greens immediately and seek their support. They have been unable to achieve that support. I mean, this is a government that has done contortions for the Greens and Independents, they have even gone to the point of going back on election commitments for things like the carbon tax and even more recently same sex marriage in order to bend their position to the will of the Greens and the Independents. Now the Coalition is asking for the government to agree with a position they took to the last election and that was that offshore processing should take place in a country that has signed the Refugee Convention. Now we have said that is necessary because of the High Court decision which said that a more – or the implication and outcome of that was, that a more objective test is required as to whether protections –humanitarian protections – are in place for offshore processing. Now we believe the best way to achieve that is to require a litmus test of whether someone’s signed the Convention. Now that was the government’s position before the last election. We are asking them to agree with themselves.

QUESTION:
But what are the Malaysia Solution and Manus Island if not proposals for how to deal with this problem?

MORRISON:
Well as I pointed out in The Australian today in a fairly detailed article, the Coalition has been very clear about what appears insoluble problems with the Malaysia proposal. I mean, the government is asking the Parliament to completely abolish all humanitarian protections in the Migration Act for offshore processing. That is their request. We should not lose sight of that. They are asking for a blank cheque on this issue. Now there are many governments I wouldn’t want to give a blank cheque to. I wouldn’t give a blank cheque to any government on these matters but certainly not this government. And certainly not, whether it’s a Gillard Government or a Rudd Government or whatever government it is, they should not get a blank cheque on these matters and that’s what they’re seeking. And that’s why the Coalition has expressed such strong reservations.

QUESTION:
But isn’t there a proposal that you can start negotiating from?

MORRISON:
Well we did and we put a proposal back to the government nine weeks ago, in fact it was longer than that, when we put forward amendments in the Parliament. That was the last word on this matter. The last thing that was discussed on these matters between the Coalition and the government prior to this exchange of letters was our amendment to have the Migration Act allow offshore processing in 148 countries that had signed the Refugee Convention. The government rejected that and then 24 boats have arrived in nine weeks, they’ve moved to onshore release without any discussion with the Coalition, they’ve adopted the Greens policy and we now have the mayhem that’s before us.

QUESTION:
How does your concern about the human rights of asylum seekers in Malaysia gel with turning boats back at sea to Indonesia?

MORRISON:
Well that’s an interesting point. Intercepting vessels and retuning them to Indonesia is the same as trying to prevent their departing Indonesia. These two policy measures sit within the same space. That is ensuring boats don’t come to Australia. That is point one of our plan. Point two for those vessels that can’t be returned – we have offshore processing in Nauru to ensure that those who may come by that method do not have access to the onshore entitlements that this government is giving them and thirdly, for those who are found to be refugees, then we believe the answer should be temporary protection visas, which deny them access to family reunion which is the reason we have so many unaccompanied minors getting on boats these days. So we put those three measures forward. Obviously, there’s also a range of other matters from dealing with peoples’ lack of documentation to returning people who are found not to be refugees. I mean, 30 percent of those who went through the Pacific Solution went back to their country of origin; less than two percent under this government, under their policies, have been returned. So they’re our measures, everybody knows them. The government has refused all of them and refused to countenance even consideration of restoring them and so it’s not unreasonable for the Coalition to simply say; make us an offer, put something on the table and we’ll talk about it. But until then, this is a hollow gesture.

QUESTION:
The Indonesian government has said that they oppose Australia turning back the boats, isn’t that a national security issue to antagonise a large neighbour like that that Australia really relies on at the moment to try and track down and catch people smugglers?

MORRISON:
Well this government’s relationship with Indonesia I think is at a real low point. I mean, the fact that this government took a decision on the basis of a television programme to deny a food supply to Indonesia would hardly endear us to the Indonesians. The fact that this government abolished border protection policies that has led to thousands upon thousands of people coming through Indonesia’s borders and creating the issues on their sea line I think doesn’t endear a productive relationship that can deal with these matters. Now we believe we would be able to be far more successful in these way, as we were before. I mean, we can’t forget the fact; we implemented these policies before with an Indonesia that had similar views. So the government just rejects it out of hand. They have never even tried. We have confirmed that with officials. This government has never even countenanced the option.
Thank you.

END

Speech : Transcript - Sky News AM Agenda

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 13:00:00 GMT

Speech

Transcript - Sky News AM Agenda

Tuesday 20th December 2011

SUBJECTS: Indonesian boat tragedy, Coalition border protection policies

E and OE

GILBERT:
First though let’s go to the Shadow Immigration Minister Scott Morrison. Mr Morrison, thank you very much for your time.

MORRISON:
Thank you Kieran.

GILBERT:
As I mentioned, we’re going to have a little bit more on the reaction to Kim Jong-Il in just a moment. First of all, let’s talk about this asylum seeker tragedy. 13 more survivors, that brings the number of survivors to 45 - that latest advice from the Indonesian authorities

MORRISON:
Well that’s welcome news that more survivors have been found and as you know from the statement we issued on the weekend, the Coalition supports making available assets to assist with that rescue and recovery operations so that’s welcome news but the overwhelming news as we know is not good, it’s absolutely tragic and absolutely devastating and I fear there’ll be worse news to come.

GILBERT:
The Foreign Minister said that Chris Bowen is having ongoing active discussions with you on these matters. Has there been talk of a compromise between the two of you when it comes to offshore processing?

MORRISON:
Well I think Chris sort of put that in context yesterday on David’s program yesterday afternoon. Of course around these events there are exchanges between the Opposition and the government. Well what I made very clear last night and said in the Australian last night and that is - if the government wants to work with the Coalition, then they must put a concrete proposal on the table. The Australian people aren’t looking for talk, they’re looking for action and for there to be action, there has to be a proposal to discuss. Otherwise it’s just a couple of politicians having a cup of tea. That’s not what we need here. We need a proposal from the government that we can respond to and I think one of the reasons we’re not getting that response from the government in the form of a proposal is they can’t agree on one. Chris Bowen is said to have actually put something to the cabinet which was shouted down by the Prime Minister. Now the government can’t actually agree on a proposal, then it’s very hard for the Coalition to respond to anything.

GILBERT:
What are the non-negotiables for the Coalition? Will you continue to demand Nauru and temporary protection visas?

MORRISON:
Well of course we will continue to advocate and insist on the policies we now worked, Kieran, I mean Dr Khalid Koser from the Brookings Institute made this very point to the Lowy Institute just last week. It defies explanation why the government in the middle of this will not even countenance, even consider restoring the policies that they abolished. I mean, that is the reason we are in this position in the first place and it’s the government’s arrogance and pride that prevents them from acknowledging the abolition of those policies has led us to this point. The government had a clear choice nine weeks ago – they could follow the path of the Greens or they could follow the path of the Coalition. They chose the Greens and ever since onshore release was introduced just three weeks ago, the number of arrivals to Australia has doubled. We’re now at four per week. That’s up from two per week after the Malaysian proposal was rejected by the Parliament so it has doubled since onshore release has come into effect.

GILBERT:
Would you welcome a compromise though with the government?

MORRISON:
There can be no compromise unless the government puts a proposal Kieran that’s the point –

GILBERT:
Would you welcome it, would you welcome it?

MORRISON:
It’s a hypothetical. I mean, of course we would like to see the government put in place policies that would deal with this terrible situation of their own creation but we can’t even get a proposal out of the government. It’s fine for them to say they want to talk and talk and talk but there has to be a proposal to talk about. The last word on this matter was when the Coalition put back to the government our proposal that offshore processing occur in 148 countries that have signed the Convention to ensure that protections remain in the Migration Act. Let’s be clear – the government wants to abolish all human rights protections in the Migration Act for offshore processing. Now we believe you don’t have to do that to achieve offshore processing and that is fundamentally what the debate was about in the parliament.

GILBERT:
But if the government said it would accept Nauru and TPVs for example, would the Coalition accept Malaysia because surely whatever is happening now isn’t working and something needs to happen?

MORRISON:
Sure Kieran but the government aren’t saying that and that’s my point. The government are not – do not agree that they could put that position to the Coalition. They are divided amongst themselves on this issue and so, I mean, the Coalition can’t respond to hypotheticals from journalists for positions that the government can’t even bring themselves to put and that’s why I’m calling on the government to get over their own differences and divisions and be able to consider putting a formal proposal to the Coalition that we can consider and in the meantime, I think the most important thing the Prime Minister could do before the Christmas break is to restore temporary protection visas immediately. That requires the stroke of a pen to get that done and I urge her to do it to send at least some message to people smugglers before Christmas.

GILBERT:
Do you concede that a lot of people would be watching the events of the last few days with dismay that it’s not just the government, the Opposition as well, both sides of politics?

MORRISON:
I’m watching it with dismay, Kieran, I’m watching it with dismay and I’ve been, as you know, consistent on this position for two years since I’ve been in this portfolio. The government refuses to listen to us. They listen to the Greens, they do cartwheels for the Greens in the Parliament on things they say they would never do including putting in a carbon tax so they will go back on election commitments for the Greens and they can’t bring themselves to agree with the Coalition on doing something they say they want to do. I’m not convinced that this Prime Minister wants to introduce offshore processing because she was faced by this choice between the Greens policy and the Coalition’s and she accepted the Greens policy as the better alternative so it is really – I implore the government. This is an urgent situation, of course I think Australians would rightfully expect the politicians to get an outcome but to get an outcome the government has to put a proposal on the table. Talk is cheap, proposals are things you can actually deal with.

GILBERT:
Ok Scott Morrison, appreciate your time, thanks for that.

Ends

Speech : Transcript - ABC 7.30

Sun, 18 Dec 2011 13:00:00 GMT

Speech

Transcript - ABC 7.30

Monday 19th December 2011

Subjects: Indonesian boat tragedy, Coalition border protection policies, NSW Coroner’s report into suicides at Villawood detention centre

EandOE

CHRIS UHLMANN: We're joined now by Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison. Welcome.

SCOTT MORRISON: Good to be here.

CHRIS UHLMANN: Can you tell us how you found out about this latest tragedy?

SCOTT MORRISON: I had a text message from Chris Bowen and then I had a follow-up conversation with Jason Clare, which is normally what happens in these circumstances.

There are professional relationships that exist between the Government and the Opposition, that should come as no surprise to anyone and that's how we engage on those matters.

CHRIS UHLMANN: Almost a year ago though you sat in this studio and talked about a similar tragedy on Christmas Island?

SCOTT MORRISON: We've sat and talked about these things too many times Chris and we're talking about them again today. These scenes and these events are enormously distressing and upsetting for everyone involved.

CHRIS UHLMANN: And are you, like Chris Bowen and Jason Clare convinced that offshore processing will stop people coming by this dangerous means?

SCOTT MORRISON: I'm more than convinced because it's been our policy for a decade. I'm more than convinced because we have the means and the ability to implement it immediately if only the Government would agree. This government has processed no-one offshore. Absolutely no-one. They abolished offshore processing. And, what I find remarkable in all of these discussions is the Government cannot bring itself to identify how we got here in the first place. And that happened four years ago when they abolished these measures.

CHRIS UHLMANN: But, don't you think that people are asking now why it is that the Coalition and the Government can't get together and sort this out given that both sides actually agree that offshore processing might...might just work?

SCOTT MORRISON: I don't agree that the Government necessarily wants to achieve that objective. I mean, nine weeks ago, the Government had to choose between the Coalition's policies for offshore processing or the Greens' policies for onshore release. They chose onshore release. I mean Dr Khalid Koser said, from the Brookings Institute last to the Lowy Institute, cannot see why the Government would not seek to at least put back in place the measures that had worked before.

CHRIS UHLMANN: And you knocked back a Government measure which would have allowed offshore processing.

SCOTT MORRISON: Well we more than just did that. We made very clear to the Government over many months why we believed the Malaysian policy was a failure and it has been a policy failure.

CHRIS UHLMANN: Because you were concerned about people's human rights. And surely the foremost right is the right to life?

SCOTT MORRISON: There are three key criteria that we opposed the Government on that measure. The first one is they were seeking to abolish all protections in the Migration Act for offshore processing - all protections. Secondly, their inability to provide protections in Malaysia where we know people would be at risk, would present the need for more exceptions, which would be able to be peddled by people smugglers. And thirdly, by their own admission, they have a plan for just 10 boats; 800 people. Now more have turned up in the last 16 days than that. And this Government has no plan B for arrival 801.

So Malaysia, the Government needs to understand, has serious insoluble problems. What they should do and they could do this tomorrow, is establish TPVs tomorrow morning.

CHRIS UHLMANN: And what you could do is pick up the phone to Chris Bowen and see whether or not there's any compromise that's possible, because aren't you morally obliged, if you believe that you could save one life by negotiating, to negotiate?

SCOTT MORRISON: Well, it's for the Government to put a proposal to us. The last word on this matter was when the Coalition said to the Government on their legislation, "we recommend that we have a clear test for protections in the Act which would be to sign the Refugee Convention". Now that was the Government's own policy before the last election. We're asking the Government to agree with itself. We're not asking them to go back on a commitment. This is a government that will do cartwheels for the Greens and Independents on things they said they would never do like a carbon tax but they won't come to the Coalition with now a response to our proposal, which was that we have offshore processing in countries that have signed the convention.

CHRIS UHLMANN: Don't you think both sides are being damaged by this? It looks like just bloody mindedness and it looks like the Coalition has a particularly useful weapon at its disposal and it's going to use it as best it can?

SCOTT MORRISON: Well I think that's a very cynical view Chris.

CHRIS UHLMANN: Are people not able to get cynical by now? A year ago you were talking about this.

SCOTT MORRISON: And a year ago we were saying exactly the same thing. The Government refuses to listen. They refuse to listen. They refuse to acknowledge how we have ended up in this place.

Now it is incumbent upon the Government to put a concrete proposal to the Coalition so we can work together. Otherwise it's just talk. It's just talk. If the Government is serious about having a way forward here, they must put a concrete proposal to the Coalition.

CHRIS UHLMANN: You say that the Government has refused to listen but you have access to the same advice that the Government has. You know that its department was saying the thing that worked under your solution was boat turnarounds and that Malaysia in essence is the same kind of thing; that's the process that they're working on?

SCOTT MORRISON: It's not the same kind of thing. I don't agree with that at all. I mean it's offshore processing; boat turnarounds are not offshore processing. That's the same as trying prevent boats leaving...

CHRIS UHLMANN: It's returning people to their point of origin?

SCOTT MORRISON: No it's not returning people to their point of origin. Their point of origin is actually Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran.

CHRIS UHLMANN: And we know the jump-off point is Malaysia for a lot of people.

SCOTT MORRISON: The jump-off point is actually Indonesia and that's where the Coalition's policy is focussed on returning boats and that's as important as trying to ensure these boats never leave Indonesia in the first place.

So a government that says it wants to prevent boats from leaving Indonesia and then says it won't return boats to Indonesia I think has a real inconsistency in their approach.

But offshore processing needs offshore protections. Now this Government wants to abolish those, and what they've brought into the Parliament is a bill that seeks a blank cheque. Now, when people's lives are at risk and are concerned, I don't think any government should have a blank cheque, be it an Abbott government, be it a Gillard Government, be it the Rudd Government, or any government. And the Coalition has steadfastly said that we cannot agree to the complete abolition of protections in the Migration Act, which is what they're seeking.

CHRIS UHLMANN: And if you're here in a year's time or even a couple of months' time having the same conversation about people having drowned because of this, while you believe that there was a solution open, while there was a possibility of negotiating, won't you have also morally failed?

SCOTT MORRISON: But Chris there is a solution available. There are the proven measures which this Government has consistently refused to restore or even countenanced restoring. Why is it that the Government is so adamant and so bold about this that they refuse to acknowledge that their decision to abolish the measures the Howard Government has, has brought them to this place?

CHRIS UHLMANN: And you refuse to acknowledge legal advice that says Nauru might not be an option any more either.

SCOTT MORRISON: Well no, the legal advice never said that Chris. That is what the Government verbal advice is saying.

CHRIS UHLMANN: You don't think that it will be tested?

SCOTT MORRISON: Nauru can be implemented under current law. We know that.

CHRIS UHLMANN: And it won't be tested in the High Court?

SCOTT MORRISON: Everything can be tested in the High Court but we know that our policies in Nauru can be implemented in a way that meets the test.

Now if the Government wants to agree to our amendment, well that further strengthens the position. But it is really incumbent on a government not to talk about working together but to actually do something concrete to achieve that by putting things on the table, which the Government refuses to do.

So I say to Mr Bowen, I say to the Prime Minister, if you have a concrete proposal to put on the table, then put it on the table. But that is the way to deal with the issue in moving forward.

CHRIS UHLMANN: You're personally close to Jason Clare, in fact, you walked the Kokoda Trail with him with groups from your different electorates.

SCOTT MORRISON: .... earlier this year too yeah.

CHRIS UHLMANN: So are you going to talk to him about this?

SCOTT MORRISON: Well, these matters are within the province of the Minister for Immigration and the Prime Minister. I mean Jason was very helpful in the discussions we had on the weekend about the matters that were being updated regularly and I think that was a helpful thing to happen between both sides of politics, but at the end of the day this is matter for the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister could reintroduce temporary protection visas tomorrow morning and actually allow us to move past today with at least one message to the people smugglers: that they cannot sell permanent visas to Australia.

CHRIS UHLMANN: On another matter, the New South Wales Coroner today looked at the deaths - ruled on the deaths of three men in Villawood last year and found there were systemic failures in the system. Is our detention centre system failing as well?

SCOTT MORRISON: Yes, it is. I mean, we've lost control of the borders and we've lost control of the detention network. And the recent review into the riots, the Hawke-Williams review found that the overcrowding and the pressures that placed on the system had largely rendered it incapacitated I think to deal with major crises and things of this nature and this is one such crisis. It found that there just simply weren't the procedures in place to deal with these types of events. Now that is extremely concerning but the thing that is pressuring the system is the overcrowding and the rate of arrivals. The Richmond report just last week said the same thing.

CHRIS UHLMANN: Scott Morrison we'll leave it there, thank you.

SCOTT MORRISON: Thanks a lot Chris.

Media Release : Statement regarding the tragedy off the coast of Java, Indonesia

Sat, 17 Dec 2011 13:00:00 GMT

The Coalition is profoundly saddened at reports of a further tragedy off the coast of Java involving an overcrowded vessel believed to be carrying asylum seekers to Australia.

The human scale of this tragedy is not yet clear, but the initial reports indicate that many lives may have been lost.

While these events did not take place in Australia's waters they are equally devastating and equally tragic. The Coalition supports all efforts necessary to support the rescue and recovery operation as may be requested by the Indonesian Government.

The report of this tragedy once again confirms our worst fears and the extremely dangerous nature of these journeys, especially at this time of year.

The large number of people reported to have been on this vessel is especially concerning and confirms the trend we have seen this year of the people smugglers putting more and more people onto every boat.

Media Release : Latest boat arrivals heading for the mainland

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 13:00:00 GMT

The 79 people on board the latest boat arrival yesterday are being taken directly to the mainland in Darwin during the busiest December on record as the surge of arrivals once again is building the pressure in our overstretched immigration detention network, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Scott Morrison and Shadow Minister for Justice, Customs and Border Protection, Michael Keenan said today.

“This is now the busiest December ever for illegal boat arrivals to Australia and the year is ending with arrivals at the highest level all year Morrison said.

“As the year draws to a close the people smugglers have never been in such a strong and commanding position over this government. The decision to transfer arrivals directly to the mainland is another demonstration of Labor's complete abandonment of the proven border protection measures of the Howard Government,” he said.

“As the boats continue to come in record numbers our detention system will come under the same stress and strain which led to riots this year.
“Since Labor's decision to move to onshore release into the community with work rights and benefit payments, the number of people arriving by boat has doubled over and above those arriving after the failure of the Malaysian people swap,” he said.

“Labor's continued softening of border protection policy has created a boat magnet for Australia and the Government remains in complete denial, clinging to their failed five for one Malaysian people swap rather than work with the Coalition to restore polices that worked.

“This is a government that never learns from their mistakes. Failed policy after failed policy on illegal boats was followed by a complete surrender to Bob Brown. Julia Gillard has simply just given up with border protection no longer identified as a priority of her Government,” Mr Morrison said.

Mr Keenan said: “If Jason Clare is going to be an effective new Minister for Home Affairs and clean up the disastrous mess that his predecessor and the Gillard Government have created, then he must start by reversing the damaging cuts to the agencies that are responsible for policing the Gillard Labor Government’s border protection fiasco.

“To start with, Minister Clare must reinstate the $58.1 million that his predecessor gutted from Customs before he even begins to address the other multiple holes left in our border protection system including the $20.8 million taken out of aerial surveillance,” he said.

“Unless this desperately needed funding is restored to the border protection agencies, then the rapid influx of illegal boat arrivals will continue, placing further strain on the already overcrowded detention network.

“The Australian people can only hope that this new Minister for Home Affairs will be more than just another Gillard cardboard cut out who tows the line rather than taking immediate action to secure Australia’s borders and offer some relief to the under-resourced men and women of Customs Border Protection Command,” Mr Keenan said.

Speech : Transcript - Joint doorstop interview

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 13:00:00 GMT

Speech

Transcript - Joint doorstop interview

Friday 16th December 2011

Subjects: The government’s failed border protection policies; live cattle export trade; Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard.

EandOE

TONY ABBOTT:

It’s good to be here in Darwin. I’m pleased that Scott Morrison, the Shadow Minister for Immigration and Michael Keenan, the Shadow Minister for Customs and I have had the chance to look at the new Wickham Point Detention Centre. It’s also good to be here with Cobham and the Customs officials to get a briefing on aerial surveillance operations. We only have the Wickham Centre – just opened with currently a capacity of 500 people but a surge capacity soon of 1,500 – we’ve only got these centres because the Government has totally lost control of our borders. It’s a bad situation getting worse. We’ve already had almost 800 illegal boat arrivals in the month of December. Already – and the month is scarcely half over – it’s the highest December monthly arrivals on record and it’s just going to get worse and worse because this is a government which plainly has no plan to stop the boats, no plan whatsoever.

We’ve obviously got a situation where the people smugglers are doing more business than ever and if the Prime Minister was serious about removing the people smugglers’ business model, before she goes on holidays this afternoon, with a stroke of a pen she could restore temporary protection visas and this would immediately mean that the people smugglers don’t have quite the same product to sell. It would immediately mean much less of a pull factor for people currently waiting across the Indonesian archipelago.

So, I say to the Prime Minister: please, in Australia’s national interest, before you go on holiday this afternoon, reintroduce temporary protection visas. It was part of a strong plan which worked before and it can be part of a strong plan that will work again. I suspect that one of the reasons why she is reluctant to do this is because the cabinet is plainly, hopelessly divided and dysfunctional on this as on so many other issues. If you can’t control your cabinet, you can’t control your borders and this is a dysfunctional and divided cabinet.

Just on that point, we’ve got more bad news today from Indonesia about the live cattle export trade. It seems that this is very, very bad news indeed for the cattle producers of the Northern Territory and yet we have a totally incompetent minister, Joe Ludwig, still in the cabinet because he’s not only a faceless man, he’s a hereditary faceless man and he was one of the people who deserved to be sacked from the cabinet. Instead, the Prime Minister sacked or sidelined the people who she feared might have been backing Kevin Rudd. So, really, this is a totally dysfunctional and divided government and the people are suffering because of it. Our borders are not being protected because of it.

Ultimately, as the Prime Minister goes on holidays, it’s almost as if she’s given up – given up on protecting our borders. I think she’s becoming fatalistic in the face of the challenge from Kevin Rudd. I make the point again that I’ve been making now for a few days: this cabinet cannot contain the two of them. This government cannot go on any longer with both Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd in it. One way or another, one of them has got to go if Australia is to have strong government.

I’m going to ask Scott and Michael to say a few words and then I’ll take some questions.

SCOTT MORRISON:
Thanks, Tony. It’s good to be here with Tony and Michael. What we’re seeing in our detention network is a continuation of the rolling crisis we’ve seen as more and more boats and more and more people have arrived, as Tony has said. We’ve got the same toxic combination of factors brewing once again, at the same time of year, leading up to the riots we saw at Christmas Island and at Villawood in Sydney and of course there have been many riots up here in Darwin. As the boats continue to come, as the people on those boats continue to come, the detention centres will continue to fill up and we will see the same combination of forces brewing once again.

Today we read the reports of weapons including knives and metal bars and things of this nature being found in detention centres and a minister who is completely dismissive about their presence. This is a minister who is running an all carrot and no stick detention network and that’s one of the reasons we’ve seen the chaos and the cost and sadly the tragedy that we’ve seen on so many occasions.

So, as we look forward into the new year, I can only restate what the Leader has said and that is, the Prime Minister can act. She chooses not to. She chooses to roll over and capitulate to the Greens in embracing the onshore release policies that they have been pushing for so long and these onshore release policies present some real risks. We’ve seen here, even recently, here in Darwin, of the case that is now under investigation by the police. The minister should be taking an immediate set of advice from his department and seek to suspend, I believe, the nature of excursions that are taking place where individuals from detention centres are mixing particularly with children in the community. Now, this is something the minister should be moving on very quickly and taking advice on and suspending.

So, as we go through the summer, the most dangerous time of the year, the Government has failed to learn from its mistakes and they’re bound to repeat them again.

TONY ABBOTT:
Michael?

MICHAEL KEENAN:

Well, as Tony and Scott have just outlined, we’re living through an enormous surge in illegal boat arrivals, even by the standards of the Gillard Labor Government. At the same time we have a new Minister for Home Affairs responsible for border security. He presides over agencies who are being allowed to be gutted by his predecessors. They’ve taken from next year over $20 million out of the aerial surveillance that this plane behind us will be doing on our borders. They’ve taken $58 million out of Customs, out of cargo inspection for all cargo that comes into Australia, allowing a greater chance of contraband weapons and other precursors to drugs and other things that we want to see off our streets, allowing them the greater chance to come into our country. This new minister, Jason Clare, is apparently one that has the backing of the New South Wales right and apparently is a rising star within the Labor movement. If he’s going to be an effective minister responsible for border protection, the first thing he must do is reverse the cuts to the agencies that are responsible for policing Labor’s border protection disaster. We cannot have a situation of increasing boat arrivals and agencies that aren’t properly resourced to do their job to protect Australia’s borders and if Jason Clare is going to be more than a cardboard cut-out, if he’s going to be more than a smiling face announcing yet another illegal boat arrival coming to Australia courtesy of the people smugglers, he must act to do something to protect the agencies that he’s supposed to be representing within the Government.

TONY ABBOTT:
Ok, any questions?

QUESTION:

Mr Abbott, what happens to Wickham Point, if it was under a Coalition government?

TONY ABBOTT:

Well, we will stop the boats and under those circumstances you wouldn’t need centres like Wickham Point. As long as the boats keep coming you won’t just have Wickham Point, you’ll have more centres; more centres, more cost, ultimately more riots, more disruption, more spending that Australia increasingly can’t afford. So, in the end you’ve got to stop the boats. That’s the only real objective that the Australian Government can have in a situation like this but unfortunately the current government stops the wrong boats. It’s been very good at stopping cattle boats between Australia and Indonesia. It’s been very bad at stopping people smuggler boats between Australia and Indonesia.

QUESTION:

How are the boats stopped, Mr Abbott?

TONY ABBOTT:

Well, the way it was done before, you can do it again and the Howard Government showed us how. Between 2002 and 2007 there were three boats a year on average. Since this government came in we’ve had almost two boats a week, on average, and the flow is just getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Since the Government announced in late November illegal boat arrivals would be released into the community on bridging visas with work rights, the rate of arrivals has almost doubled. So, what we need are the policies that worked before: Nauru, temporary protection visas and the option of turning boats around where it’s safe to do so and as I say, if the Prime Minister is serious, before she goes on holidays this afternoon, with the stroke of a pen she could reintroduce temporary protection visas. That would at least give her something to say to the Australian people is strong action to protect our borders.

QUESTION:

So that’s what your government’s going to do – reinstate offshore processing in Nauru and temporary protection visas?

TONY ABBOTT:

For a decade the Coalition has been absolutely consistent. The three elements of our policy: Nauru, temporary protection visas and the option of turning boats around where it’s safe to do so. Julia Gillard has had almost every position on these sorts of issues and she has had every position because in the end she has no clue about what to do.

QUESTION:

Are community excursions for detainees a good idea? Would you stop them?

TONY ABBOTT:

I think it’s very important that we don’t do anything that enhances the attractiveness of Australia as a business model for the people smugglers and I think that it’s important that detainees understand that they have done the wrong thing; that coming to Australia illegally by boat is the wrong thing.

QUESTION:

The question was, are community excursions a good idea?

TONY ABBOTT:

Well, I’m saying that we should not be doing anything with detainees which would suggest to them that it’s ok to turn up illegally by boat. It is not ok to turn up illegally by boat and people shouldn’t be treated as if it was.

QUESTION:

Would it be illegally by boat if they’re genuine refugees? Australia signed the UN convention. We’ve got a responsibility, don’t we, to process people?

TONY ABBOTT:

And people should do the right thing and we’ve been taking, for many, many years now, 13,500 refugees and humanitarian entrants. Everyone who comes illegally by boat is someone stuck on the queue in other countries and I think the right thing for people to do is to respect our laws and our laws say you can’t just turn up. If you want to come in, come in by the front door, not by the back door.

QUESTION:

Is that what the UN convention says? I mean, that’s what Australia has signed. If somebody is a genuine refugee, are you saying it’s illegal for them to turn up and seek refugee status?

TONY ABBOTT:

I’m saying that people who want to come to Australia have got to come by the front door, not the back door.

QUESTION:

Through aeroplanes, not boats?

TONY ABBOTT:

I’m saying, and I’m happy to keep saying it for you, ask me the same question I’ll give you the same answer: if you want to come to Australia do it the right way, not the wrong way. Come in through the front door, not the back door.

QUESTION:

Mr Abbott, the cattle industry’s been dealt a blow today. It could potentially be a problem you could inherit. Is there compensation available for pastoralists?

TONY ABBOTT:

I think that the first thing that has to happen is that the Government at the most senior levels has got to have a serious dialogue with Indonesia. Now, when this whole disaster happened, remember what brought it on, it was a panicked overreaction by this government to a television programme and as a result the livelihoods of thousands of Australians, particularly here in Darwin and the Northern Territory, were put at risk. Now, instead of sending Kevin Rudd, who might have actually had the clout to fix this, Joe Ludwig went to Indonesia and he plainly made a bad situation worse. If this was a functional government, as opposed to a dysfunctional government, Julia Gillard would have been prepared to send Kevin Rudd and if Kevin Rudd had got the credit for fixing this, so be it, but her fear of Kevin Rudd was such that she allowed this problem to fester. So, the cattle producers of the Territory are in this jam, in large measure, because Julia Gillard wasn’t prepared to let Kevin Rudd do his job.

QUESTION:

But what I asked was what does an alternative government do?

TONY ABBOTT:

Well, we go to Indonesia and we sort this out. That’s what we do. We don’t send an incompetent, relatively junior member of the cabinet to Indonesia. The only reason Joe Ludwig is in the cabinet is because he is a hereditary faceless man. You send a serious person to do a serious job.

QUESTION:

And what happens to cattle producers in the meantime?

TONY ABBOTT:

Well, cattle producers in the meantime are stuck with a government that can’t fix their problems and one of the many reasons why Australians are over this government, well and truly over this government, is because they know that it doesn’t have credible answers to serious problems.

QUESTION:

Mr Abbott, there are 10 confirmed or suspected cases of TB on Christmas Island. Has this raised concerns for incoming asylum seekers and if so what does your government do about it?

TONY ABBOTT:

My understanding is that the initial medical screening takes place on Christmas Island. If anyone has an infectious disease they aren’t transferred to the mainland. Now, I’m not going to criticise the operation of the system in this particular respect but I do yet again make the fundamental point that the only way to eliminate these problems is to stop the boats and if the Prime Minister was serious about stopping the boats, before she goes on holiday today, with the stroke of a pen she would restore temporary protection visas and the only reason she doesn’t do it is because she’s got a divided and dysfunctional cabinet. If you can’t control your cabinet you can’t control your borders.

[ends]

Media Release : Latest boat means busiest December for illegal arrivals on record

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 13:00:00 GMT

The arrival of the latest illegal boat, with 102 people on board, means 794 people have arrived on boats so far this month, making this the busiest December for illegal boat arrivals on record and it is still less than half way through, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Scott Morrison and Shadow Minister for Justice, Customs and Border Protection, Michael Keenan said today.

“People smugglers have reacted to the Government’s embrace of the Greens policies of onshore release by sending a record number of people by boat,” Mr Morrison said.

“This summer is shaping as the busiest ever for people smugglers. This is particularly distressing given this is the most dangerous time of the year to be getting on a boat for the perilous journey to Australia,” he said.

“Since Minister Bowen adopted the Greens policy for on shore release, 11 boats and over 900 people have arrived. People smugglers have had their product supercharged by Labor’s capitulation to the Greens and they are maximising their profits.

“This is a government that never learns from their mistakes. Failed policy after failed policy on illegal boats has been followed by a complete surrender to Bob Brown.

“Christmas Island is once again over capacity and yet again detention centres across the country will also fill up as the increased arrivals crowd out the government’s community release program. This same dangerous situation combined with Minister Bowen’s failure to address the problem saw riots occur in our detention network earlier this year.

“A week ago there were 359 places left on Christmas Island. Since then, 440 people have turned up, and more are on their way.

“In evidence to the Coalition’s Parliamentary Inquiry into our Detention network, the Department of Immigration confirmed that at the close of business on December 7 there were just 253 places left at the detention centre on Christmas Island. This included one of the compounds they had shut down after the riots and have now had to reopen.

“A further 106 places for children and families were still available in alternative places of detention at Phosphate Hill and Construction Camp. The Department confirmed that this did not take into account 197 people who had already been intercepted but had not arrived at Christmas Island. Since then another 234 people have arrived.

“To relieve the pressure, Labor’s ‘Asylum Airline’ will once again be in the sky, transferring people to the mainland costing taxpayers millions in charter costs,” Mr Morrison said.

Mr Keenan said: “On the day that new Minister for Home Affairs Jason Clare is due to be sworn in, another large illegal boat has arrived on our shores, showing just how confident the people smugglers are in this Labor Government keeping them in business.

“In the midst of this border protection crisis which has long spiralled out of control, the new Minister must not waste any time in fixing the mess that his predecessor Brendan O’Connor has left behind.

“New Minister Clare needs to reassess the debilitating impact the budgetary cuts to Customs have had on the operational capabilities of Border Protection Command and their ability to intercept illegal boats at such a high tempo.

“Given the high rate of boat arrivals, the new Minister should look at reinstating the $35 million in cuts to Customs announced in this year’s MYEFO and give the support and resources necessary to Border Protection Command so they can continue to mop up this Government’s border protection mess,” Mr Keenan said.

Speech : Transcript - Sky News Richo Program

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 13:00:00 GMT

Speech

Transcript - Sky News Richo Program

Wednesday 14th December 2011

SUBJECTS: Labor’s capitulation to the Greens on onshore release, Nauru, latest illegal boat arrivals, Malaysia non-solution, chaos in our immigration detention network

E and OE

RICHARDSON:
Scott Morrison, welcome to the program.

MORRISON:
G’day Graham, always good to be with you.

RICHARDSON:
Thank you very much. Now the boats, they are acoming.

MORRISON:
Well they are and they’ve particularly been coming over the last few weeks after the government decided to capitulate to the Greens and go to what we call onshore release. It’s a far cry from offshore processing and as a result, this will continue as long as this set of policies are in place.

RICHARDSON:
Were I in the government, would I not say to you - hang on, you wouldn’t let us have our Malaysian solution which would really, really, really stop the boats, so it’s your fault. Isn’t that what I’d say?

MORRISON:
Well that’s what you would say I suspect if you were in the government and you would be being true to the spin if you were doing that. But that’s not the facts of the matter because what we’ve seen is the government not only walk away from offshore processing but they’ve embraced onshore release. I mean, they’ve taken back our border protection regime to before the Tampa. Now no one forced them to do that and let’s just be honest about the Malaysian solution. The Malaysian solution is a non-solution. 905 people turned up between the time it was announced and by the time the High Court got rid of it, so this was good for about ten boats by the Department’s own admission, it was a mark time proposal and now it’s been used as an excuse to capitulate to the Greens and do what they always wanted to do.

RICHARDSON:
How many have we had since the Malaysian solution was rejected by the High Court?

MORRISON:
Since the High Court I’d have to check specifically Graham but it would be over twenty.

RICHARDSON:
Over twenty boats.

MORRISON:
Yeah

RICHARDSON:
And where are they coming from? Is it now – is it Afghanistan, is it Iraq? Where are they from?

MORRISON:
Well this is the interesting thing. The people who are coming on the boats have changed quite a lot, particularly over the last six months. It’s not necessarily those from Afghanistan anymore, it’s particularly those coming from Iran and Kurdistan and there are people coming from Iraq and there are people coming from even Sri Lanka again and that’s what – that’s what’s been told to us. So what the people smugglers have done – they’ve gone out with their bright shiny new product courtesy of the Gillard Government and they’ve been selling it everyday.

RICHARDSON:
Now if the boats are still coming primarily out of Indonesia, is there anything the government can do or you would do in government with the Indonesian government to try and stop the flow of those boats?

MORRISON:
Well the big problem I think the government has Graham is that they’re not doing the things they need to do on their side of the fence and if we’re not doing anything on our side of the fence, it’s a bit rich for us to be making all sorts of demands on the Indonesians. Now there are things going on with the Indonesian government, there are programs that’ve been kept in place from our time in government and that’s what should be done. But it’s really like trying to hold water in a paper bag with holes in it, when you’re not addressing the fundamental reason which is drawing people to Australia. So those efforts up in Indonesia are completely overwhelmed by the magnetic impact of this government’s policies.

RICHARDSON:
And of course here onshore, we’re having all manner of trouble.

MORRISON:
Yes.

RICHARDSON:
Now how do we – are we doing the right thing, firstly, in having outside companies run detention centres or should they be government run?

MORRISON:
Well based on the Federal Government’s experience in delivering programs, I wouldn’t be that confident about government department’s running detention centres again. I mean, clearly, when you contract services out, you don’t contract away the accountability or the responsibility. They deliver those services and they need to deliver them more efficiently and more effectively than a government agency could. Now that has been questioned with the current provider and we’ve got an inquiry that’s ongoing –

RICHARDSON:
Well it doesn’t seem to be going too well, just as an outsider picking up the paper from time to time or watching the telly, there seems to be all manner of strife in these detention centres.

MORRISON:
Well there is Graham and one of the things Serco themselves have recommended in the inquiry is that they need greater authority and greater powers to deal with those who are mucking up in detention and they’ve actually recommended some changes along those lines and the Coalition is very interested in those changes. We’ve always said this government has been running a detention network that was all carrot and no stick. We know today that the Minister has not used Section 501 powers against anyone. Now they’re the powers that say that if someone is not of good character, that if they’re rioted, if they’ve committed an assault or things of that nature, then you can deny them a visa. I mean, the Minister didn’t even call for a report on people who’d been convicted of rioting offences back in December 2009.

RICHARDSON:
But one of the problems we’ve got is trying to check out who these people are, as an example, who land on our shore. I note that the solider who was supposed to have shot some of our soldiers, the Afghan soldier who shot some of our soldiers in Australia over in Afghanistan before, he had all sorts of things on his record but just managed to march into the Afghan army. If you can march into the Afghan army, you can certainly march onto a boat and there’s virtually no hope in the world in a chaotic country like that, you could ever tell who someone is, what they’ve done, what their character is.

MORRISON:
And that is why we believe you need a separate process for those who come by boat and those who come by plane. Now there are many differences between those who come by those two methods. One is people don’t die on planes and that’s a fairly important distinction, that’s why you want to discourage people coming by boats but secondly ASIO told us in the course of our inquiry that those who come by boat are more than twenty times more likely to be given a negative ASIO assessment than anyone else on any other form of visa they’re asked to check. Now in the last three years, not one person who’d sought asylum in Australia who’d arrived by plane had failed an ASIO security test so there are very big differences. Around one in ten actually have any documentation and giving the benefit of the doubt in this environment, I think carries great risk.

RICHARDSON:
Well it carries great risk but one wonders what else you can do. A lot of these people don’t have passports, I know some will say they’ve been chucked over –

MORRISON:
Well they are.

RICHARDSON:
-from everything I’ve been able to gather in Afghanistan records are non-existent in a lot of provinces. You just, you wouldn’t know when someone was born, as an example, so I can virtually tell you I’m anyone, can’t I, because there’s no way to check.

MORRISON:
Well you’ve got to get on a plane to get here most of the way, Graham, that’s the point. I mean, the vast majority of people who end up on these boats have either flown into Indonesia or flown to Malaysia. That’s by their own admission in the interviews that are undertaken at Christmas Island and other places. So they had documentation when they got to Indonesia or Malaysia, some may argue that was fraudulent but nevertheless there was some paperwork and by the time they get to Australia, only one in ten or thereabouts have paperwork. That is done to deliberately frustrate our assessment process and gain the benefit of the doubt. That’s why it’s our policy that if we reasonably believe that you’ve discarded your documentation, then we use the powers under the act to presume against refugee status.

RICHARDSON:
Well we’ve been through on this program with you before the old regime that you had and how many got in and how many didn’t. What’s happening now – what’s the percentage of people who are coming here, being assessed – what’s the percentage staying and what’s the percentage being sent home?

MORRISON:
Well less than 2 percent have gone home and you’ve got people sitting in our detention network now and the government’s now going to let them out on Bridging visas, who are appealing through the courts so no is never no under this system because a no just gives you the opportunity to appeal again and we know pre-Tampa, of cases in that environment, people were appealing in the courts for a decade and that’s what the government’s returned the policies to. Now 30 percent of those who went through the Pacific Solution ended up going home and a big part of that was the absence of an opportunity to endlessly appeal these matters in the courts and that’s why offshore processing in Nauru we believe is also an important part of any effective border protection system.

RICHARDSON:
Well I’ll get back to Nauru in a moment but I was just wondering is there –

MORRISON:
We want to get back to Nauru to. We are.

RICHARDSON:
I’m aware of that. I’ll give you your opportunity in just a sec but I’m interested too – is there a figure available as to how long these assessments take? It seems to me some people it’s taking an inordinately long time to find out whether they’re in or they’re out before they can go to court.

MORRISON:
Well there are several assessments that take place. There’s the primary assessment as it’s known about whether someone has a legitimate claim. That process takes a hundred and sixty days I think or thereabouts. There were some figures out on that just recently but that has moved all over the place. But when someone gets a no, they can appeal and that process can take several hundred days more, three hundred days or so. That’s why we have people sitting in our detention network for long periods of time because they get no’s and keep appealing. Now they can appeal even further to the courts and with what the government announced a couple of weeks ago, they’ll be treated the same as those who arrive by plane which gives them even more access to appeals. So then you’ve got the ASIO process on top of that, Graham, for those that’ve had a positive assessment. Now that ASIO check can take some time for the reasons we said before and that is we don’t know who they are and we’re not going to let them out and we shouldn’t let them out until we know whether they present a risk.

RICHARDSON:
But all of that adds up to me to be a year or two for every one of them.

MORRISON:
Well it’s certainly over a year now for the vast majority and the vast majority now in our detention network currently have all had at least one no. And those who are - I go back to another point you were saying before. Those who are coming increasingly from places like Iran, which is a big component of those coming now, I mean they are coming from a different sort of cohort of people in Iran, they’re principally more educated, often from professional occupations, they have frankly a lot more money than those who were coming previously and they’re in a position to actually tell us who they are.

RICHARDSON:
Yes well I guess if you can argue your case, you are in a better slot. Now let’s just make some assumptions. Let’s say Peter Slipper hasn’t ratted on you, let’s say Andrew Wilkie has failed to get his legislation up and the government’s going down, it’s only a few months in, so that’s supposed to be done by May and you’re the Minister. What are you going to do to change it all?

MORRISON:
Well it should be a Minister on the other side of an election because what we would need to do is move immediately to restore temporary protection visas. Now that’s critically important. We had a case in the High Court today which found that they were going to restore someone’s rights to bring their parents out that’d been denied and this person had come to Australia by boat. That would never happen under our system because they’d have a temporary visa which never gives them access to the family reunion program, which is a big draw factor in terms of why people get on these boats. Nauru would be opened again and we would offshore process there and in addition, we would turn the boats back where the circumstances permitted and it was safe to do so.

RICHARDSON:
It seems to me that the courts are, if you like, pro-refugee. I’m not necessarily saying that’s a bad thing or a good thing -

MORRISON:
Well they’re the courts.

RICHARDSON:
-but it seems to be fact, they are tending to make decisions in favour of the refugees so won’t you have to change the law pretty extensively because it seems to me whatever you can extract out of it that will just lengthen the time they can be here and give them more rights, the courts seem to be able to find that and that leverage they are giving them more time, what can you do about it?

MORRISON:
Well all the three things I just mentioned don’t require a change to the law. There is a form of temporary visa still on the books that we can use, a 449 visa, so that can be done immediately, the government can be doing that now if they were of a mind to do it. Nauru can be reopened without changing the law, we’re very confident about that and turning boats back is an executive decision and that can be implemented as well, even the new Chief of the Navy admitted at evidence before the Senate that he was in two situations when he was a commander of a vessel back when we were turning boats back – on one occasion he could do it, on one occasion he couldn’t. We’ve never said it could be done on every occasion and the fact the Chief of the Navy admitted it could be done in certain occasions I think demonstrates that it can be done. Now the alternative is as the government is saying - they won’t turn the boats back where the circumstances permit and where it is safe to do so. So that gives us an indication of their resolve.

RICHARDSON:
It does indeed. Yes I think we’ll have to leave it at that because it is the end of the year for me. I just want to say thanks for your time tonight and of course during the year Scott. I wish you well, have a good Christmas and we’ll see you in the New Year.

MORRISON:
To you too Graham and to all your family and Merry Christmas.

RICHARDSON:
Thank you.

Ends

Media Release : Another boat arrives for same old policy failure

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 13:00:00 GMT

The latest boat arrival, with 58 people on board, shows that Julia Gillard can shuffle her ministers all she likes, but it is her failed policies that are the problem, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Scott Morrison and Shadow Minister for Justice, Customs and Border Protection, Michael Keenan said today.

“Labor are pursuing the same failed policies as yesterday and the boats are continuing to arrive,” Mr Morrison said.

“This latest boat means over 7,000 people have arrived since the last election. This is a Prime Minister who committed to stop the boats but who simply doesn’t meet her commitments,” he said.

“In the 18 days since Labor implemented their on shore release policies, ten boats with 806 people have arrived. This is more than three times the 256 people who arrived in the 18 days after the government abandoned its Malaysia legislation.

“It’s clear Labor’s decision to further soften border protection policies and capitulate to the Greens with on shore release is supercharging the people smugglers’ business model.

“The further softening of Labor's policies with their capitulation to the Greens has opened the latest sea lane to Australia for illegal boat arrivals.

“Labor's claim to be still pursuing their failed Malaysian people swap is nothing more than spin from a desperate government that cannot hide their failures. The Government has abolished the plan in their latest budget update and banked the savings for their mythical surplus.

“The only policy Labor has on illegal boat arrivals is on shore release. No wonder the boats keep coming,” Mr Morrison said.

Mr Keenan said: “Considering Customs Border Protection Command have been operating at breakneck speed over the past two weeks intercepting illegal boats, the new Minister for Home Affairs Jason Clare should take this opportunity to take real action and bring some integrity to Australia’s border protection regime.

“Outgoing Home Affairs Minister Brendan O’Connor has left our borders in complete shambles with his incompetent management of our frontline border protection and national security agencies, the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service and the Australian Federal Police.

“Customs and the AFP have been haemorrhaging over the past three years with the vicious budget cuts they have been the target of under this Labor Government. On top of previous cuts, in this year’s MYEFO Labor have sought to slash their budgets by up to $35 million for Customs and $45 million in cuts to the AFP.

“New Minister Clare should make it his number one priority to put a stop to the constant flow of illegal boats and ensure Border Protection Command and the AFP are appropriately resourced to manage this mess Labor have created,” Mr Keenan said.

Speech : Transcript - Doorstop interview

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 13:00:00 GMT

Speech

Transcript - Doorstop interview

Tuesday 13th December 2011

Subjects: Latest illegal boat arrival, Gillard frontbench reshuffle

EandOE

MORRISON:

Well the arrival of another boat last night with 58 people on board is another reminder that Julia Gillard can change her Cabinet all she likes but it is her failed policies that are the problem. They are the same failed policies that failed yesterday, they are the same policies that are failing today. What we see from Julia Gillard with her reshuffle is she may have reshuffled her Cabinet but she is still dealing Australians a losing hand when it comes to border protection, when it comes to her inability to control the budget and when it comes to facing off the pressures of cost of living for Australian families. This is a Prime Minister who can’t even control the size of her Cabinet so why would it be a surprise that she can’t control our borders or her Budget.

This is a weak reshuffle from a weak Prime Minister, a Prime Minister who has been unable to establish her own authority. She hasn’t even been able to control the size of her own Cabinet or address the toxicity at the core of her dysfunctional government. The poison between her and Kevin Rudd continues to plague this government and it will continue to do so, so long as it remains and they both sit inside the same Cabinet. We have already seen today Kevin Rudd stirring the pot again and Julia Gillard can be very sure that over the summer he will be cooking something up for her in the new year.

So this is a government led by a weak Prime Minister with a reshuffle that is almost incomprehensible as she sought to buy off favours and shore up the faceless men and her own position than addressing the real challenges addressing Australia’s future.

QUESTION:

What do you make of Chris Bowen’s decision to remain in the portfolio?

MORRISON:

Chris Bowen follows the same failed pattern of his predecessor Chris Evans and what is clear is that whether they change the Ministers or not, one thing they don’t change is the policies. It is interesting to note it was 61 days ago that the government walked away from their legislation in the Parliament. 18 days ago they announced and put into place their onshore release policy. What is interesting is that since they announced their onshore release policy the number of boats has doubled and the number of people coming on those boats has tripled. What this shows is it is the government’s softening of policy that is acting as a boat magnet to Australia at this most dangerous time of the year. So I appeal to the government and Mr Bowen to admit that they have got it wrong, that it is time to embrace proven policies and to work with the Coalition to put those policies in place.

QUESTION:

The fact that he is staying on in the job though suggests, doesn’t it, that they intend to push through, I guess, the resolution of the ALP National Conference and continue with that plan.

MORRISON:

Well the resolution of the ALP’s conference enables them to implement Nauru. That is the clear outcome of that plan being approved by National Conference as any other. We need to understand that Mr Bowen can not implement a policy that he abolished. Mr Swan has already banked the savings from abolishing the failed Malaysian people swap in his budget update. So the Minister can not have it both ways. He can’t be pursuing a policy that his treasurer has abolished. I think that exposes the charade of the Minister continuing on with this charade on the Malaysian people swap. The Malaysian people swap failed. The government should accept that and should move to proven polices, particularly as we continue to see this crisis worsen by their own hand.

QUESTION:

You draw attention to a boat arrival last night, with 60 people or something, what effect does that have on the average Australian?

MORRISON:

Well we have seen over the past four years that the budget of dealing with asylum seekers in this country has gone from less than $100 million to more than $1 billion. The sheer financial consequences and the impact of the budget are very, very strong but more importantly what it does is Australians are sick and tired of how this government has undermined the integrity of our immigration program. Australians support our immigration program as does the Coalition, as a Liberal Party in particular, we have been the party that has built that immigration program over decades but what Australians want to be confident of is the government is in control of it. This is a Prime Minister who is not even in control of her Cabinet, let alone her borders.

QUESTION:

But with a few thousand people or whatever it is arriving per year, we are not going to be overrun are we?

MORRISON:

Well that’s not the suggestion. What is at risk is people putting themselves at risk on boats, what is at risk is the integrity of our immigration program, what is at risk is what we saw earlier this year when our detention centres literally burst into flames and outraged Australians, what is at risk is the budget blow outs occurring under this government’s watch, what is at risk is the way this government incompetently pursues failed policy after failed policy which has become a metaphor for the broader failures of how this government operates.

QUESTION:

[inaudible]

MORRISON:

905 people turned up between the day that deal was announced and the day it was struck down by the High Court and it was a deal for 800 people. The government doesn’t seem to understand the structural flaws in its own policies. We have pointed them out to them time and again and they have proven policies they can implement tomorrow but they refuse to do so. This is a government that will do contortions for the Greens and the Independents in the Parliament. The Coalition puts one amendment to them that would see offshore processing possible in 148 countries and they fold their tent and walk away in a huff. That is not how a responsible government acts.

QUESTION:

But if you are really though concerned about the lives of these people who are jumping into boats, surely you would be working with the government to come up with a solution that everyone…

MORRISON:

Well we have and we have proposed one and the government has refused it.

QUESTION:

But you won’t work with them on their solution.

MORRISON:

Well we have outlined the problems with this policy for months…

QUESTION:

You are being equally obdurate aren’t you?

MORRISON:

The government is responsible for the passage of their legislation, the government is responsible for what happens on our borders. The Coalition has put forward a clear amendment which would enable them to pursue offshore processing and they have rejected it, in fact they haven’t spoken to us ever since. So it is a matter for the government to deal with this issue. We have made our position very clear, as the Independents have on their issues, as the Greens have on their issues. It seems the government only wants to work with the Greens and the Independents and not the Coalition.

END

Media Release : Border protection as unpopular with PM as Kevin Rudd

Sun, 11 Dec 2011 13:00:00 GMT

Julia Gillard has airbrushed her greatest failure as Prime Minister from her list of priorities for next year for the second time in as many weeks in her announcement today, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Scott Morrison said today.

“Ever since the government announced their capitulation to the Greens with their onshore release policy, boat arrivals have surged and yet the Prime Minister has conspicuously removed border protection from her list of priorities for 2012,” Mr Morrison said.

“Border protection for this Prime Minister is about as unpopular as Kevin Rudd. They're both subjects she just doesn't want to address or talk about,” he said.

“Julia Gillard could have acknowledged her failings and those of her failed Minister, Chris Bowen, by announcing the Government would be adopting the Coalition's proven policies of offshore processing at Nauru, temporary protection visas and turning boats back where it is safe to do so, and tasking a new Minister with that job.

“She chose not to do so, and couldn't even acknowledge that fixing Labor's border protection mess was a priority for 2012.

“Before the last election Julia Gillard could not say the word boats often enough. Now she can’t say it at all, let alone do anything about it.

“The Coalition in government will get our borders back under control and restore confidence in Australia’s immigration program lost so irresponsibly under this failed government and a Prime Minister who has revealed her boat blind spot,” Mr Morrison said.

Media Release : Boat rush will break down detention network again

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 13:00:00 GMT

It is only a matter of time before the constant arrival of illegal boats to Australia once again overwhelms our detention network, as another illegal boat was intercepted overnight, with 72 passengers and 2 crew on board, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Scott Morrison and Shadow Minister for Justice, Customs and Border Protection, Michael Keenan said today.

“Illegal boats are now arriving daily following Labor's decision to further soften Australia's borders, with the secretary of the Department of Immigration confirming we could expect 3,600 arrivals in the next six months,” Mr Morrison said.

“The Government will simply not be able to let asylum seekers out of detention fast enough under their new onshore release policy, at this rate of arrivals, to avoid dangerous increases in our detention population,” he said.

“This will inevitably lead to the filling up of our detention network, creating the same toxic combination of pressures that led to the riots earlier this year.

“More importantly the high rate of arrivals is tempting fate on a daily basis, with reports being investigated yesterday that three people who were on the recent ill fated voyage that sunk off Indonesia, have since arrived in Australia on another vessel.

“Labor never learns from their mistakes nor accepts responsibility for their policy failures.

“As the border crisis of Labor's own many making worsens, Labor remains in denial, casting around to blame anyone but themselves for the continuing chaos on their watch.

“Once again we are seeing history repeat itself with another boat surge in response to Labor's decision to further weaken our borders.

“As a Government, Labor would rather continue with their softer policies than work with the Coalition to restore off shore processing and the other proven policies of the Howard Government that put an end to the people smugglers trade to Australia,” Mr Morrison said.

Mr Keenan said: “Julia Gillard and the Labor Party elected to take government after the last election and with that decision comes responsibilities.

“One of those primary responsibilities is to protect Australia's borders.

“Labor's abolition of the proven policies of the Howard Government and subsequent contortions to adopt every single policy position apart from one that works, has created a gold mine for people smugglers.

“To be able to send three boats to Australian within 24 hours signals their final victory over a Government that has appeased them at every turn,” Mr Keenan said.

Speech : Transcript - Doorstop interview

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 13:00:00 GMT

Speech

Transcript - Doorstop interview

Saturday 10th December 2011

Subjects: latest illegal boat arrival, Labor’s border protection failure, Cabinet reshuffle speculation

EandOE

MORRISON:

The arrival of another boat overnight with 72 people on board means the arrivals will continue unabated as long as this Government continues to soften the border protection policies that the Howard Government put in place.

Julia Gillard has removed every brick in the wall of border protection John Howard established and ever since they implemented their on shore release policy in their capitulation to the Greens, the number of people arriving by boat and the number of boats has doubled.

This is a Government that continues to ease and weaken border protection controls and as a result the boats continue to arrive at the most dangerous time of the year.

Yesterday the secretary of the Department of Immigration warned that we could be looking at 3,600 people tuning up over the next six months. This rate of arrivals will overwhelm our detention network and this Government won’t be able to release people fast enough to ensure that we don’t see a repeat of the toxic combination of factors that led to the riots in our detention centres earlier this year.

We also see that this Government continues to refuse to heed the lessons of their own mistakes. Their on shore release policy has already drawn the fire and the ire of the State Governments, particularly in NSW and Victoria. We have the Police Ministers expressing real concern about the impacts of this on shore release policy for their communities.

This is a federal government who is looking to shift the burden of the problem of their own making on our borders, into our communities, and expecting state taxpayers to bare the cost. This is a Government that continues to fail to think through the consequences of their weak policies and their bad decisions. And as a result we will continue to see the chaos and the cost and hopefully not, but we fear, the tragedy of the policies of this failed Government.

I also note that the Prime Minister continues to allow the speculation to run about a cabinet reshuffle. What Labor needs to understand is that it’s not just the people who are the problem in their Government but it is the bad policies. She can reshuffle her deck all she likes, but this is a deck that is full of jokers and unless this Government changes the policies as well as the people then we cannot expect any change in the prospects of how this Government is run.

Furthermore as long as Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd are in the same cabinet, this is a dysfunctional Government and it is up to the Prime Minister to put an end to this dysfunctionality and either step aside herself and allow Kevin Rudd to take on the role or to do what is seems all her colleagues are urging and that is send Mr Rudd to the boundary.

So what we have is a Government that fails to heed the lessons of its mistakes, refuses to take accountability for their failures particularly on border protection, they are shifting the cost of that out of detention centres and off the Federal Government’s ledger into the community for state police and other services and we can only expect the chaos to continue.

One of the many consequences of the rapid increase in arrivals we’re seeing prior to Christmas is that the asylum airline that this Government has had to run will be busier than Qantas before Christmas as the number of people continue to arrive at a record rate. That’s simply what happens when you soften the policies and allow and create a magnet for boats to come to Australia at this most dangerous time of the year.

There will be as many planes in the air flying people off Christmas Island as there will be boats heading towards Christmas Island in the months ahead.

END

Media Release : Seventh boat in nine days as people smugglers endorse Labor's capitulation to the Greens

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 13:00:00 GMT

The arrival of the seventh illegal boat in nine days, carrying 52 passengers, continues the surge in boats since Labor capitulated to the Greens and introduced community release of illegal boat arrivals, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Scott Morrison and Shadow Minister for Justice, Customs and Border Protection, Michael Keenan said today.

“People smugglers are wholeheartedly endorsing Labor’s capitulation to the Greens by sending boats on an almost daily basis since the community release policy was enacted,” Mr Morrison said.

“This decision to abandon all deterrent to people smugglers was the most irresponsible a government could make on border protection, especially when it was made at the most dangerous time of the year to take the boat journey to Australia,” he said.

“This is a government that is hopelessly distracted and divided and has given up on all pretence on strong border protection in order to satisfy Bob Brown.

“More boats have arrived in under four years under Labor than arrived in the 12 years of the Howard Government which prompted the Coalition to act decisively to stop the boats

“The community release program is already being overwhelmed by the number of boat arrivals. Evidence before the inquiry into immigration detention today showed Christmas Island is already near or over capacity and the government has no answer. The last time conditions were this bad riots and chaos in immigration detention were the direct result,” Mr Morrison said.

Mr Keenan said: “The men and women of Border Protection Command are going to feel a further strain on their already stretched resources with the arrival of the seventh boat in December.

“The rate and size of the arrivals is making it almost impossible for them to do the job they are tasked with - intercepting illegal arrivals.

“How can this incompetent Labor Government continue to justify taking an axe to Customs funding whilst Australia’s border protection falls apart at the seams as a result of the decisions they have made?

“While the Gillard Government continues to stick their heads in the sand and refuse to address Australia's border protection crisis the influx of boats will continue.

“With this latest arrival it is clear that the Gillard Government is on track to meet the Immigration Department’s prediction of 3,600 asylum seekers within the next six months,” Mr Keenan said.

Speech : Transcript - Doorstop interview

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 13:00:00 GMT

Speech

Transcript - Doorstop interview

Friday 9th December 2011

Subjects: latest illegal boat arrival, crisis in immigration detention, Nauru, divided Labor government, passing of Sir Zelman Cowen

EandOE

Scott Morrison: The arrival of yet another boat last night continues the border protection crisis that is self made by this government and that we’ve seen occurring throughout the life of this government. Under this government we have had more people arrive illegally by boat in less than four years, than occurred over the entire period of the Howard Government, of almost 12 years. This is a tragic record for a government who has simply, completely lost control as we see as each day passes.

Today the detention inquiry will resume and we’ll hear from the Secretary of the Department of Immigration. One of the many consequences of the government’s failure to have adequate and proper and sound and effective border protection policies has been the rolling crisis we’ve seen in our detention network. As we’ve taken evidence around the country, we have seen how that network collapsed and literally blew up on this governments watch. And the overcrowding has been a significant contributor to the problems we have seen in our detention network. And that overcrowding comes from only one place and that is boats arriving.
So we have a government who seriously thinks it is a better idea to abolish the policies that worked under the Howard Government, refused to restore them and now embraces the policies of onshore release that takes border protection back more than ten years before the Tampa period.
When you soften border protection laws that much and completely abolish all remaining remnants of the Howard Government’s regime then what we’re seeing happening on a daily basis with boats arriving at the most dangerous time of the year can only be expected. And it will continue as long as the government continues this crisis of it’s own making.

Question: If you win government, you are going to inherit all these people in detention. What’s your plan to shift all of these people out of detention? How are you going to manage them all in detention?

Scott Morrison: Well it’s the same way we did it last time and it won’t be easy and it will take time. When we left office in 2007 there were just four people in our detention network who had arrived by boat. And it took many years to achieve that but that is what we achieved. So we will work through that program and we will work through the problems and we will solve them because the Coalition has a track record with the Australian people. For one thing, probably above all else, and that is we know how to clean up Labor messes. That’s what we’re best at.

Question: On Nauru, there has been a fair bit of chopping and changing there in terms of political leadership. Are you confident enough that Nauru is a stable enough place to build a detention centre and that you will still have an agreement when it comes to a change in government?

Scott Morrison: Absolutely. Everyone in Nauru, every Member of Parliament is supportive of reopening the centre and the new President Sprent Dabwido has already confirmed that he would be continuing the policies of the Stephen Government in the support for that centre if Australia wishes to reopen it. So the phone number is the same, the president may have changed, but the policy is the same and the Prime Minister can still act today to restore the policies that her predecessor Kevin Rudd abolished and that she went the full distance with when she moved to the Greens’ policy of onshore release, which is the driving force behind the boats we’re seeing arrive today.

Question: There’s talk today of a Cabinet reshuffle before Christmas, do you think we could see this?

Scott Morrison: What the government needs is a policy reshuffle. The government’s policies are the problem here. They can change the faces all they like. They can shuffle the deck all they like. But every time they’re going to pull out a joker. And so the problem for the government is their policy. This is something the government refuses to confront. In border protection, that is the problem. It’s a policy problem. It’s even worse now today under Chris Bowen then it was under Senator Evans. And they changed the minister. So unless they change their policies, then I don’t see how they can actually change the direction.

We have a government at the moment that is toxic within. It is a government that is deeply divided. We have a foreign minister and a Prime Minister who can barely even look at each other let alone talk to one another. Kevin Rudd this morning was asked a simple question by Fran Kelly -“Do you think the prime minister is doing a good job?” In a contorted answer that ran for minutes, he couldn’t say one word and that was yes.

Question: Do you think Kevin Rudd should or will go?

Scott Morrison: Well that’s a matter for both Mr Rudd and for the Prime Minister. But what is clear is that as long as they are both in that Cabinet, this will be a dysfunctional government.

Question: Do you think there will be a reshuffle on the Coalition side of the fence?

Scott Morrison: Well they’re always matters for the leader and I never entertain those matters.

Question: Also with the passing this morning of Sir Zelman Cowen what’s your comments?

Scott Morrison: Sir Zelman Cowen was a great Australian and he will be sadly mourned and missed by a very grateful nation. Thank you.

END

Speech : Transcript - 2GB Afternoon program

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 13:00:00 GMT

Speech

Transcript - 2GB Afternoon program

Friday 9th December 2011

Subject: Latest illegal boat arrival

EandOE

Luke Bona: Mr Morrison good afternoon, thanks for your time.

Morrison: G’day, good to be with you.

Bona: Well here we go again.

Morrison: That’s right. We’ve had 130 people actually turn up in the last 24 hours and another 50 odd that you’ve just mentioned there in terms of just being intercepted. It’s amazing. In the last, less than, four years of this government we’ve had more people turn up illegally by boat than in the full, almost, 12 years of the Howard Government. That’s how chronic the failures are. You may have mentioned before that there’s been X number since the Malaysia failure but what’s more important there is that’s when the government decided to completely capitulate to the Greens and go to their onshore release policy which takes us back more than ten years in terms of border protection. So this government certainly knows how to make things go from bad to worse.

Bona: But they’ll tell you it’s all Tony Abbott’s fault because he wouldn’t go along with Malaysia.

Morrison: Well they’re just absurd. That is just ridiculous. This government had the choice between re-establishing the proven measures of the Howard Government or adopting the Greens policy of onshore release and they adopted the latter. Now the government will be held accountable for that and that’s exactly what we’re doing now. The boats will continue to come at this most dangerous time of year because this government just cannot admit when it gets something wrong.

Bona: And you’ve got to ask yourself how many more boats are on their way now?

Morrison: Well the secretary of the department believes we should continue to average around 600 people a month. That means 3,600 in the next six months and the minister says he’s going to let out 100 a month so it wont be long before the detention network is clogged again and we’re faced with exactly the same situation we were last March when they literally stood by and watched the places burn. That’s what happens when you get border protection wrong. It not only costs a fortune, it puts people lives at risk and it leads to the sort of chaos that we’ve seen in our detention network that we’re currently inquiring into as part of this parliamentary hearing.

Bona: Scott Morrison, what’s the capacity of Christmas Island please?

Morrison: Well this is what we didn’t get a very straight answer on this morning. What they would prefer is if there were only 400 people at the North West Point Centre. Just 400. But they’ve reopened those compounds that they closed after the riots just recently to take on board the extra people who are coming. Now they’ll remain open, they’re not going to close those again. They are going to need them indefinitely. So it looks like there is a capacity there of around about 1,400 and we’re over that now because we’ve got at least 200 people on their way there as we speak.

Bona: I’ve got people online who will want to ask you this: if we are giving Indonesia $550 million a year in aid is there any we can open up lines of communication so that they can cooperate in stoping the boats before they leave?

Morrison: Well I think that’s exactly what we should be doing but our government has absolutely no credibility to ask the question. If you can’t look after things on your own side of the fence you look pretty meek when you’re trying to demand others do something that you’re the cause of. This government is the reason why people are coming through Indonesia on the way to Australia. So it’s a bit rich for Australia to think that when we’re not doing everything we should, that we can lecture everybody else. Now they should be doing this and we should be working more closely with them. And that’s what a Coalition Government did and it’s what we’d do again. But we’d do it on the basis of credibility of putting in place proven methods to get this issue under control which this government has clearly lost control of.

Bona: I’ll let you get back into that inquiry. Scott Morrison thanks for your time this afternoon.

Morrison: Thank you Luke, good to be with you.

END

Media Release : More arrivals in four years under Labor's failed policies than entire 12 years of Howard Government

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 13:00:00 GMT

The arrival of the latest illegal boat, with 80 people on board, adds to the crisis in border protection under Labor, a crisis which has seen more boats arrive on Labor’s watch than arrived in the entire period of the Howard Government, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Scott Morrison and Shadow Minister for Justice, Customs and Border Protection, Michael Keenan said today.

“In just four years Labor’s failed border protection policies have been responsible for a record number of illegal boat arrivals, with 266 boats carrying 14,171 people. This eclipses the 243 boats and 13,647 people that arrived during the 12 years of the Howard Government and prompted the Coalition to act decisively to stop the boats,” Mr Morrison said.

“The Howard Government had a problem and developed a policy solution. Labor found a solution and created a crisis. First Kevin Rudd dismantled the successful policies of the Howard era and now Julia Gillard has removed all disincentive to people smugglers by capitulating to the Greens,” he said.

“Labor’s border protection crisis is the worst in our history and is exacerbated by every new arrival. Labor’s adoption of the Greens’ solution of community release will only export the crisis to the community, leaving the states to pay for Labor’s failure and leave our borders at the continued mercy of people smugglers.

“As the Coalition initiated inquiry into Australia’s crisis-hit detention network resumes tomorrow, Coalition members will continue to hold Labor responsible for their failures and refusal to install the Coalition’s proven policies to stop the boats.

“The number of boats arriving is overwhelming Labor’s community release of illegal arrivals which will once again build pressure on our already stretched immigration detention network,” Mr Morrison said.

Mr Keenan said: “With the arrival of the third boat in four days it is clear that not only have the Gillard Labor Government failed to combat the people smuggling trade but they have in fact completely lost the faith of the Australian people to protect our borders.

“The Minister for Home Affairs was once again focusing his attentions on assisting countries in their fight against people smuggling before attending to the border protection fiasco in his own backyard.

''This Labor Government must swallow their pride and work with the Coalition to restore the proven policies they abolished when they came to power in August 2008, so as to put an end to these record numbers of boat arrivals,” Mr Keenan said.

Media Release : Opinion piece - Daily Telegraph

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 13:00:00 GMT

Bob Brown now has everything he wanted for Christmas on asylum policy - and he didn't even have to believe in Santa Claus.

Julia Gillard has now abolished the last brick in John Howard's wall. Her onshore release policy for asylum seekers takes border protection back more than 10 years to the pre-Tampa era and has led to a new surge in illegal boat arrivals.

It was the most significant decision to soften border protection since Kevin Rudd abolished temporary protection visas and the Pacific solution, completing Labor's capitulation to the Greens on asylum policy.

At Labor's national conference, the ALP compounded its problem by broadcasting the desire to increase our refugee intake to 20,000 per year.
That would mean an extra 25,000 refugees over four years.
A self-made political crisis in the Labor Party does not justify such an increase. The pull factors created by Labor's latest capitulation has supercharged the people smugglers' product at the most dangerous time of year to make a boat journey.

The changes allow those who arrive illegally by boat to be released into the community with work rights, government payments, health services and endless taxpayer-funded appeals through our courts, regardless of whether they are refugees.

Labor believe their new policy of further softening our borders is preferable to reopening Nauru, restoring TPVs and turning boats back where it is safe to do so.

Labor is constantly caving in to the Greens on everything from gay marriage to the carbon tax, yet refuses to accept amendments from the Coalition on offshore processing.

Labor and the Greens justify their position by saying boat arrivals should be treated the same as those who arrive by plane. They should consider the following facts.

First, people do not die on planes coming to Australia, they die on boats. One in five on these boats are children.Second, we do not know who is on the boats. Almost nine in 10 people who arrive by boat have no documentation, while those who come by plane are fully documented and have been granted a visa.

Third, boat arrivals have a higher security risk than those coming by plane. Boat arrivals are more than 20 times more likely to be given a negative security assessment.

Finally, there is an urgent queue of 100,000 legitimate refugees requiring immediate resettlement. Their resettlement in Australia is being denied by those who arrive by boat.

More than half the 14,500 people who have turned up on boats under Labor have arrived on Gillard's watch. It is her single largest policy failure.
Her recent decisions have only made it worse.

Media Release : 2011 Cook Community Awards honour our local heroes

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 13:00:00 GMT

Local Federal Member for Cook, Scott Morrison recognised 40 unsung local achievers with Cook Community Awards at a civic presentation at Sutherland on Saturday, celebrating their dedication and commitment to making the Shire an even better community for all of us.

“The Cook Community Awards are a great way to acknowledge and say thanks on behalf of our community to those who give their time, often behind the scenes and without fanfare, to work to improve the lives of others here in the Shire,” Mr Morrison said.

“This year's 40 award recipients were nominated by more than 35 local organisations throughout the Shire, and have between them dedicated more than 823 years to selfless volunteer work.

“Awardees work in a range of fields from charities to running our local sporting clubs. John Hughes, Foundation President of Elouera SLSC, was recognised with a posthumous award.

“The Cook Community Medal, singles out one of our selfless volunteers in recognition of their unique contribution as a leader for their cause in our community. This year I was very pleased to recognize Graham Hill as our Cook Community Medal recipient for a lifetime of service as President of Tradies.

“Tradies make an extraordinary contribution to our community. Graham has been at the forefront of this contribution for more than three decades, taking a personal interest in many of the causes Tradies support, including respite care and surf life saving.

“Graham is one of the Shire's most generous and selfless servants and it was a pleasure to have the opportunity to honour his contribution last Saturday.

“The awards are also about celebrating people like Christine Blood, who works in the Australian Volunteer International Disaster Organisation in the areas of health, nursing, education and humanitarian support for those less fortunate including on the ground in Sri Lanka after the 2005 Boxing Day tsunami.

“They’re about recognising people like Elvie Lachlan of Thomas Holt Villages, who has worked tirelessly in a volunteering role at the village for the past 35 years including escorting residents to and from medical appointments and fundraising.

“Thanks to all our Shire volunteers for your continued dedication. You help make our community strong,” Mr Morrison said.

Our 2011 Cook Community Award winners are -

2011 Cook Community Medal

Graham Hill Tradies

2011 Cook Community Awards

Luigi Ambrose Gymea Probus Club

Henry Barratt Meals on Wheels

Timothy Biasetto ShireLive

Christine Blood Australian Volunteer International Disaster Organisation

Russell Chappell Port Hacking Lapidary Club

Vincent Crisafulli Miranda Magpies Football Club

Raymer Gunning Woolooware Shores Retirement Village residents committee

Graham Hill Tradies

Jan Keen Sutherland Early Support Service

Enid Kirkton Caringbah Craft &amp;amp; Activity Centre

Elvie Lachlan Thomas Holt Villages

Richmond Manyweathers Rotary Club of Caringbah

Kim Ryder Cronulla Seagulls Football Club

Bob Sawyer Caringbah North Public School

Martin Tabone U-Turn-The-Wheel

Robert Whitten Gymea Anglican Church

Adam Young St Patrick’s Sutherland Cricket Club

Paula Harrison, Judith Blackburn Green Point Netball Club

Judy Payne, Maydie Stone Cronulla Lantern Club

Eloise Graf, Angelina Smith, Rosie Smith Elouera Surf Life Saving Club

Tuula Kuusela,
Victoria Weaver Caringbah Public School PandC Association

Brian Staunton,Peter Matthews Our Lady of Fatima School

Lisa Moylan,Karen Ferguson Taren Point Public School

Guilio Di Stefano, Bob Rivett Sutherland Shire Football Association

Robin Alleway, Gloria Douce, Raymond Hart Cronulla RSL Sub-Branch

Marina Farmer, Bruce Read,
Kerry Brissenden, Faye Seddon St Luke’s Anglican Church

John Hughes Elouera Surf Life Saving Club

Media Release : Biggest boat under Gillard arrives as Labor supercharges border crisis

Mon, 05 Dec 2011 13:00:00 GMT

The arrival of the second boat in 24 hours, with 167 people on board, is the biggest boat under Julia Gillard’s failed leadership and the third largest to arrive since Labor abandoned the Coalition’s strong border protection policies, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Scott Morrison and Shadow Minister for Justice, Customs and Border Protection, Michael Keenan said today.

“This arrival is a new record of failure for Julia Gillard, a Prime Minister who was appointed by the faceless men to fix Labor’s border protection mess but is responsible for a growing crisis in border protection,” Mr Morrison said.

“Today’s arrival means more than 14,000 people have now arrived on 265 illegal boats since Labor abandoned the Coalition’s proven border protection regime. Well over half the arrivals have come under Julia Gillard’s watch,” he said.

“Labor have supercharged their self made crisis in border protection with their new even softer policies and they’ve done it at the most dangerous time of the year.

“More than 400 people have arrived on illegal boats in a week as people smugglers react to Labor’s capitulation to the Greens.

“With the detention population on Christmas Island once again pushing past the crisis threshold, the government’s asylum air lines will be swung back into operation to airlift people to centres around the country at significant cost to taxpayers.

“The government must swallow their pride and work with the Coalition to restore the proven policies they abolished.

“Labor’s failure to control our borders is Julia Gillard’s greatest policy failure,” Mr Morrison said.

Mr Keenan said: “The Minister for Home Affairs is in Jakarta today to discuss people smuggling but he should also be trying to convince his Labor colleagues to reverse the disastrous course they have taken Australia down since coming to office.

“Labor abolished offshore processing and wound back the robust system of border protection they inherited and this allowed the people smugglers to go back into business.

“The border protection crisis Labor have created is a home-grown problem that needs an urgent local policy solution that this Government refuses to adopt.

“While regional initiatives are important the priority must be to fix the problems on our side of the fence that this government created,” Mr Keenan said.

Media Release : Another boat brings 4,000th illegal arrival of the year

Mon, 05 Dec 2011 13:00:00 GMT

The arrival of an illegal boat just off the Australian coast, with 56 people on board, means 4,000 people have arrived on 61 boats this year as people smugglers continue to take advantage of Labor’s new on shore release policy for boat arrivals, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Scott Morrison and Shadow Minister for Justice, Customs and Border Protection, Michael Keenan said today.

“The arrival of 4,000 people this year on 61 illegal boats eclipses the 2,856 who arrived on the same number of boats in 2009, once again showing people smugglers are cramming more people onto boats for the dangerous journey to Australia to boost their profits under Labor’s failed policies,” Mr Morrison said.

“The number of boats arriving is overwhelming Labor’s community release of illegal arrivals which will once again build pressure on our already stretched immigration detention network,” he said.

“This is a desperate and divided government that is trying to wash its hands of their self made crisis on our borders. As more boats come the Prime Minister has gone into hiding, failing to take responsibility for her failed policies.

“In what was supposed to be her year of delivery, the Prime Minister has hopelessly failed on border protection as every additional illegal boat arrival demonstrates.

“Meanwhile Minister Bowen pretends to still be pursing his failed Malaysian people swap, despite the fact that it was abolished in last week's budget update, going into the dustbin of other failed Labor policies such as the Prime Minister's East Timor farce.

“Labor will go into contortions to satisfy the Greens and the Independents but won’t talk to the Opposition about restoring our proven border protection solutions, including offshore processing on Nauru. Instead, Labor has fully embraced the Greens policy of onshore release, as confirmed by their National Conference on the weekend, which has only made Australia even more of a boat magnet than it was before,” Mr Morrison said.

Mr Keenan said: “This latest boat arrival, being so close to the West Australian coast is just another example of this Gillard Labor Government dumping their border protection mess on WA's doorstep.

“After Labor took the hatchet to Customs' budget they left Border Protection Command so stretched beyond capacity that illegal boats are able to sail in all the way to the mainland.

“This rolling border protection crisis has become the norm under Labor and WA is fed up with being the dumping ground as the boats keep streaming in.

“Labor need to take responsibility and allocate appropriate funding to pay for their failures rather than expecting the states to cover their ballooning costs,” Mr Keenan said.

Media Release : Bowen's refusal to commit to Migration Amendment vote exposes Labor's border protection vacuum

Sun, 04 Dec 2011 13:00:00 GMT

Minister Bowen once again failed to commit to bringing on a vote on the government’s amendments to the Migration Act today despite changes to the Party's platform on the weekend, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Scott Morrison said today.

“Despite his grandstanding at Labor’s national conference on the weekend, when interviewed on radio this morning Minister Bowen once again refused to commit to bringing on a vote on his Migration Amendment,” Mr Morrison said.

“The fact is that Labor abolished their policy on offshore processing in MYEFO last week,” he said.

“The Government's only policy on illegal boat arrivals is onshore release, abandoning every last deterrent implemented by the Howard Government, creating a magnet for boat arrivals at the most dangerous time of the year.

“Labor cannot pretend to be pursuing a policy they have simultaneously abolished in their own budget to maintain their mythical pretensions to a surplus.

“Ever since the High Court struck down Minister Bowen’s failed Malaysian people swap it has been used as a smokescreen for the adoption of the Greens’ policies on illegal boat arrivals.

“Minister Bowen today went out of his way to praise Bob Brown’s policy on illegal boat arrivals, a policy he has fully embraced.

?“Labor will go into contortions to satisfy the Greens and the Independents but won’t talk to the Opposition about our amendments to the Migration Act which will enable offshore processing in any of the 148 countries around the world that have signed the refugee convention.

“Despite his chest beating the fact remains that Minister Bowen has refused to commit to a vote on the legislation, has erased it from the Government’s budget and has meanwhile unwound border protection back to the pre Tampa days to satisfy Bob Brown.

“Today Minister Bowen reminded Australians that only the Coalition is serious about introducing policies that will stop the boats. Our suite of proven measures have been policy for over a decade,” Mr Morrison said.

Speech : Transcript - Channel Ten evening news

Sat, 03 Dec 2011 13:00:00 GMT

Speech

Transcript - Channel Ten evening news

Sunday 4th December 2011

Subjects: Selling uranium to India, Labor Party Conference, Remuneration Tribunal decision on MP’s wages

EandOE

BELLING:
Now for our regular Sunday political debate and going head to head tonight, Defence Material Minister Jason Clare, who’s at the ALP Conference at Darling Harbour in Sydney and Shadow Immigration Minister Scott Morrison who joins us in the Network 10 newsroom.

DORAN:
Welcome to you both.

MORRISON:
G’day.

CLARE:
G’day Tarsh, G’day Matt.

DORAN:
First to you Jason Clare if I could please on the issue of uranium sales to India, how do you go about justifying selling to a nation which hasn’t yet signed the non-proliferation treaty – if I can get that out.

CLARE:
It’s a long word. Matt, India’s now agreed to put itself under the International Atomic agency as well as the nuclear suppliers group. That means that it’s agreed to inspections, it’s agreed to separate its civil and its military use of uranium and it’s also agreed to not get involved in nuclear testing so it’s agreed to effectively the same as that regime which means that we’re now confident that the time is right to make this decision. It’s good for jobs in Australia, it’s good for the economy and it’s good for our relationship with the biggest democracy in the world and a rising super power in our region.

BELLING:
Mr Morrison if I can put it to you – we’ve heard the argument there it’s great for jobs, great for the economy but there are serious concerns even within the Labor party, we saw Doug Cameron saying Prime Minister you’ve got it wrong, we even saw Peter Garrett seriously concerned and saying he was disappointed, wanting stringent safeguards.

MORRISON:
Well we think it’s the right policy and always have. It’s the Labor party that’s flipped and flopped on this issue. They’ve basically just corrected the policy mistake they made several years ago under Kevin Rudd but what I think it has also highlighted once again is the division in the Labor party ranks. I mean, today we had Cabinet ministers opposed to Prime Ministers on a very serious issue of policy and it’s highlighted what we’ve seen all weekend at this conference and that is a deeply divided party on many issues and a party very distracted on the issues that frankly just aren’t the top topic on the kitchen tables of Australians.

DORAN:
Mr Clare you were the spokesperson for the Labor party at the National Conference. Be honest – how much of it was an honest true contest of ideas and how much of this was just staged I guess in effect to give Julia Gillard a couple of wins?

CLARE:
Well Matt the Prime Minister said she wanted a real conference with real debates and we certainly had it. I had a little bit of a look at how many votes we had – I think we’ve had more votes at this conference than we’ve had in the last ten, maybe the last fifteen years of conferences so real policy debates here –debating important issues like the economy, like education, like climate change as well as the commitment to introduce a national disability insurance scheme – you wouldn’t get that in Scott’s party at a Liberal party conference, you’d have Tony Abbott – he’d stand up and say no, Scott’d agree and they’d all go home.

MORRISON:
Jason! Look, what we -

CLARE:
You know it’s true, mate.

MORRISON:
What we saw over the last couple of days is a party, as I said, which has been deeply divided and if it was the intent to tell the entire country that the most pressing issue in the country was gay marriage, well they’ve succeeded in that. I mean, that’s what this conference will be remembered for – a party focused on issues that aren’t the main topic of concern of Australian families. Rising costs of living, pressures on our national economy, issues of asylum seekers and the government’s failures and all we’ve seen was a party obsessed with itself and the faceless men and women of the Labor party, it’s just -

CLARE:
Now, now, come on mate –

MORRISON:
It’s going true to form as we’ve always seen, Jason, and –

CLARE:
That’s a little bit rich, Scott.

MORRISON:
Well ask –

CLARE:
I know you’re a good mate of mine but you’re talking about division – you’ve got people in the Liberal party that are quitting the Liberal party to go and become Speaker so you want to talk about division, it’s on show for all to see in the parliament with your mates in the Liberal party.

MORRISON:
Kevin Rudd was up there doing his job application again this afternoon and I saw that he was getting right into it, I mean given that Julia Gillard completely airbrushed him from history in what I thought was a very, very weak speech. I mean the Prime Minister’s becoming more superficial and cosmetic on issues now with her British minder to try and polish over all the policy failures we’ve seen from this government and what we’ve seen again over the entire weekend is more spin from the Labor party and completely out of touch with the issues that Australians are concerned about.

CLARE:
I’ll say one thing on this one mate, we’re good mates.

MORRISON:
Yes we are.

CLARE:
You know what the most important thing is in Bankstown and Cronulla, it’s jobs and we’ve created 750,000 jobs in the last four years when millions of jobs were lost in America and Europe. That’s the most important thing as people sit down for dinner tonight. They want to make sure they’ve got a job–

MORRISON:
But that’s not what you were talking about at the conference.

CLARE:
They’ve got a job in Australia mate because we made the decision to vote to make sure that we didn’t go into recession and your blokes on the other side decided to vote against it, would’ve put us in recession.

MORRISON:
Jason, you need to come out from the bubble, mate, when it comes to those sorts of issues. I think when people look at this conference over the weekend they’ll just be scratching their heads saying who’s running this show and what is their set of priorities and they’ll be scratching their head for some time to come.

BELLING:
Jason if I can put it to you, talking about issues that matter – jobs – you’ve just mentioned that all there. I’ll tell you, a lot of Australians were a bit furious when they saw the Prime Minister receive a $94,000 wage increase. Now most Australians - that’s what they’re on for a whole year considering the economic climate, some may argue politicians aren’t doing a good job. How can you justify this?

CLARE:
Well I think that’s a little bit inaccurate to say that the Prime Minister or Scott and I have got a pay rise, we’re waiting for a report from the Remuneration Tribunal. There’s a decision that was made that the politicians shouldn’t decide how much we get paid, a tribunal should – there’s speculation about what this report’s going to say but we haven’t seen it come out yet. I think Scott and I will probably agree on this one. We both did jobs before we became politicians that paid us more than what we get paid now as politicians and it’s up to the tribunal to decide how much they think we’re worth.

BELLING:
So if the tribunal says a wage increase, you’ll say no thanks?

CLARE:
No, no a decision has been made and it was made in parliament I think around six months ago that whatever the tribunal decides, the Parliament will agree with but really when you get involved in politics representing people, it’s not about how much you get paid, it’s about the things that you can do that make a difference and it’s about jobs. It’s about trying to make sure that people have got the money on the table to pay for the things they’re eating at home tonight.

DORAN:
Unfortunately we’re out of time. Thank you both though. Jason Clare and Scott Morrison. Appreciate your time.

CLARE:
Thanks guys.

MORRISON:
Thanks very much, see you Jason.

CLARE:
Thanks Scott, cheers mate.

Speech : Sky News Australian Agenda

Sat, 03 Dec 2011 13:00:00 GMT

Speech

Sky News Australian Agenda

Sunday 4th December 2011

Subjects: Chris Bowen’s desperate deal at Labor National Conference, Labor’s capitulation to the Greens on border protection, Coalition border protection policies, gay marriage

EandOE

Peter van Onselen:
Welcome back, this is Australian Agenda, we're joined by Scott Morrison. Thanks for your company.

Scott Morrison:
G' day Peter, good to be here.

Peter van Onselen:
Do you agree with Chris Bowen, do you think Australia should do more in terms of its humanitarian intake of refugees?

Scott Morrison:
I agree with Chris Bowen, that Australia does have the most generous refugee and humanitarian settlement program in the world, and we do. And that has been, I think, a consistent position from both parties over many, many years. The issue of increasing it though I think is a very different matter. I think we owe an obligation to those who we are resettling, particularly those who are coming from offshore, that we have the programs that can support them make good contributions to our community. When you increase a program from 13,750 to 20,000, well, A, it is going to cost just under $1.4 billion, but secondly it's going to put enormous strain on the settlement programs we have for those who are already coming. If you get your resettlement programs wrong for people who we're taking from what are very difficult pasts then I think that can create all sorts of problems. And I'm not confident the government has even thought all this through, this is just a quick political fix to take what was a five-for-one swap to get Malaysia over the line to a thirty-for-one swap to get his own conference over the line.

Paul Kelly:
Given the number of boat arrivals has the Labor Government lost control of Australia's borders?

Scott Morrison:
I think they lost control of it almost four years ago, Paul, and nothing's changed since then. Let's not forget they started this process by abolishing the regime that was working almost four years ago. Kevin Rudd started that job, and Julia Gillard finished that job with Chris Bowen last Friday week when they announced the onshore release policy being activated which takes us back pre Tampa. The softening of policy and the further softening of policy is what has contributed to this complete loss of control that we're seeing.

Paul Maley:
You could toughen policy though, couldn't you, by passing Labor's amendments and restoring offshore processing, is that something you can categorically rule out doing when the parliament sits again next year?

Scott Morrison:
The government can do that by adopting our amendment and restoring the policies that worked. I mean that's the matter for the government. Anthony Albanese constantly talks about the need to deal with the parliament that's before him; he talks about the need to engage those who are in the parliament and it seems there is nothing he can't say yes to when the Greens are asking, or the independents are asking. What has happened here is they put a bill into the parliament, the Coalition came back with an amendment and then the government just said no and that was it. Now the policy has been abolished from their budget. So yesterday we had a minister take what I thought was an incredibly desperate plan to what is clearly a very divided party on border protection to restore a policy that they've already abolished.

Paul Maley:
But is there any prospect at all of a deal between the two major parties on offshore processing next year?

Scott Morrison:
The government has no interest of even entertaining our amendment. I mean there's been no further dialogue, no approach from the government to the Opposition since we proposed our amendment. I mean they just withdrew the vote before there was any further discussion, and that was clearly done because this minister had to go to his national conference and face the faceless men and women of the Labor Party to get approval to take it anywhere further.

Paul Kelly:
If we just assume then that there's going to be no solution to the deadlock between the Labor Government and the Coalition, what will be the consequences in terms of boat arrivals? I mean, what's your assessment as to the number of arrivals we're likely to see on a month by month basis?

Scott Morrison:
Well I can only assume that we'll continue to see the trend that we've seen over the term of this government. I mean, I don't have access to the same security briefings that the minister does but what is clear is as long as the government pursues soft policies and they further soften policies - let's not forget that, Paul, not only did their Malaysian Solution fail both in the High Court and in other places, but then they took the decision to soften the policy even further. The onshore release policy is the government's policy, they have no other policy. They abolished any pretence that they had - if they were ever serious on offshore processing after the High Court decision - they abolished that in the MYEFO last week. So that's their view, that's where they're going and the consequences of that will be what we have seen for the last three and a half years.

Paul Kelly:
How many boat arrivals in terms of numbers do you think we're likely to see as we go into 2012 on a month by month basis?

Scott Morrison:
Well let's just look at the history. I think the secretary of the department himself said that we had an average of around 600 last year, this year it's been less than that; I think they are the sort of things we can expect. But, you know, I can't forecast these things, the government is in a better position to do that because they have access to the intelligence. But what I can't understand is why this government simply refuses to engage with the Coalition when it comes to this matter. They have simply just folded their tent and walked away. Now they never do that with the Greens. I mean, Bob Brown may not be a delegate to this conference but the Greens are certainly setting the agenda of this conference, that's clear to everyone.

Paul Maley:
Tell me, how is the Coalition's proposal to reopen the detention centre in Nauru going to work under the post High Court legal framework, particularly in relation to unaccompanied minors? How are you going to deport unaccompanied minors who the High Court now says have access to judicial review?

Scott Morrison:
As we know the existing protections under the Migration Act and the High Court decision on those protections needed to deal with the issue, firstly of an international arrangement which they subscribe to and obviously Nauru is now a signatory to the convention. Secondly, Nauru are introducing domestic laws that deal with their obligations and the protections which our Act requires. Thirdly, there would be a robust agreement between Nauru and Australia, as there was last time, as the High Court indicated there was last time, certainly when compared against the voluntary arrangement they had with Malaysia. And, fourthly, the practical issues on the ground which the High Court also look at in terms of how protections are delivered, Australians would be involved directly in that process. So I feel very comfortable about our ability to meet the tests set down by the High Court. They've been very clear about them. We put the protections into the Migration Act, they are the protections the government actually wants to abolish. It's a point that's often lost in this debate: The government just doesn't want to restore offshore processing - well I'm not sure they do actually, I think we've seen that exposed - but they want to abolish all protections in the Act which I think is the wrong way to go. But on the other point, I mean, there are clearly options available to us to how you address that in terms of how people enter our waters and don't enter our waters and they are things we'd have to deal with in government.

Peter van Onselen:
You say that you'd be comfortable with Nauru, vis-à-vis the High Court decision, would you also be comfortable with the secretary of the department staying on to oversee the implementation of Nauru given that he's made it quite clear in some of the testimony he has given that he doesn't think it will work.

Scott Morrison:
The secretary of the department is going off on six months study leave in March of next year so I'm not certain about what decisions he's taken. Look, they are matters you deal...

Peter van Onselen:
It sounds like you'd like him to take six years not six months.

Scott Morrison:
No, look, I mean he's been a respected member of the public service who has served both governments. He has been a key architect of the government's policies.

Peter van Onselen:
But to my question, could you see him overseeing the implementation of Nauru given that he doesn't think Nauru would work?

Scott Morrison:
I think that's an inappropriate question at this time of the cycle, I mean we'll deal with those matters if and when we are elected to government. I have no reason to believe that any public servant would want to serve a new government any less enthusiastically than they would want to serve a current one, and that's, I think, one of the hallmarks of a good public servant.

Paul Kelly:
Do you accept that the detention system is under enormous strain and pressure, and that if there was a change of government in order to uphold your policy, your commitment to detention, you might actually have to expand the system?

Scott Morrison:
Well that will depend on where we're at in terms of arrivals and where the government's policy is at in terms of their onshore release, but we are seeing at the moment - I have visited pretty much every centre there is with the exception of Pontville at this point, and hopefully I'll get there at some point - but the system has been under enormous stress. Our detention enquiry that we had established has showed a system that has been the victim of overcrowding which has been produced by one thing: too many people arriving. I mean the Hawke-Williams review was a damning indictment on how the government was managing the detention network. They had clear warnings, clear reports - on Christmas Island for example they took the Federal Police off the island in November and then for month after month where the report showed increasing levels of negative decisions, change in the case mix of people coming into the centre, a significant rise in the number of incidents occurring at that centre and an increasing population, the police didn't get on to the island until the place blew up. So there will be and remains significant tensions in the detention network. At Curtin, for example, almost 80% of the people in Curtin have had at least one negative decision. I was at Scherger on Friday and Thursday and there we have almost 70% who have either had a negative ASIO assessment or have had a negative refugee assessment decision. So this is the environment the detention centre is in and it is a fairly toxic combination, and I fear that we will see more incidents.

Paul Maley:
Just a quick question on gay marriage if we could. There's going to be a conscience vote in the parliament next year, should Coalition MPs be given a conscience vote or should the position be set by shadow cabinet?

Scott Morrison:
First of all I don't think that issue is going to do anything in terms of the asylum debate. What I find amazing about the Labor Party conference is just where their priorities are. I mean, these issues that they have allowed their conference to be defined by I think sends a message to Australians: what are these guys on about and who's running the show? They have lost complete control, unless that is actually the most important issue on their agenda and that's the message they're trying to send.

Peter van Onselen:
Be that as it may though, do you think it should be a conscience vote for the conservative side of politics as well?

Scott Morrison:
Firstly there's no bill before the parliament. When there is a bill...

Peter van Onselen:
You must have an opinion though on the issue, whether it should be a conscience vote issue or whether it should be a party discipline issue.

Scott Morrison:
I will answer it simply in this way, and that is we had a commitment before the last election that we would not support a change to the Marriage Act. That's our commitment.

Paul Kelly:
So in other words no conscience vote?

Scott Morrison:
There's no bill before the parliament. I've outlined what our commitment was before the election and I support that commitment, and I believe that's what our commitment is.

Paul Kelly:
Your leader, Tony Abbott, has said that he thinks there should not be a conscience vote. Is that your position?

Scott Morrison:
It's my position and I believe it's the position we took to the last election.

Peter van Onselen:
Are you aware of Liberals though that are doing a bit of a ring around? I've heard names, I won't out them unless they actually add themselves to the list, but I've heard that Liberals are ringing around saying that the party should consider a conscience vote on this issue. Have you been lobbied on that?

Scott Morrison:
No. Look, there are a range of views that exist in any political party but I think what's important is that political parties keep their commitments. And this is a prime minister who has hopelessly failed to keep commitments; whether it's on her carbon tax pledge, whether it's her failure to deliver on border protection, and the backflip now where she said she wouldn't be supporting changes to the Marriage Act she's now going to facilitate that through her own party and has been taken hostage by the Greens yet again. I mean, Bob Brown has got everything he wanted for Christmas and I'm not sure he even believes in Christmas.

Paul Kelly:
How damaging do you think this is then for Julia Gillard? We've got a conflict here between the formal position of the Labor Party in the new platform and the personal view of the Prime Minister. Will the Opposition seek to make an issue of this?

Scott Morrison:
I think they are a very divided party beyond that, Paul, too. Let's look at what's going to happen today, a cabinet minister is going to propose a motion opposing the Prime Minister's policy on selling uranium to India. The Leader of Government Business in the House of Representatives and another senior cabinet minister supports opposing the Prime Minister on that policy. Now, if that were to happen in the Liberal Party I think every front page in the country would be running a story about division in Liberal ranks. I mean, this is happening on the floor of the national conference of the Labor Party; cabinet ministers at war with one another over a whole host of issues. This is a divided government over which the Prime Minister has lost complete control and that's not good for the country.

Peter van Onselen:
Scott Morrison, shadow immigration spokesperson, we appreciate you joining us on Australian Agenda. Thanks for your company.

Scott Morrison:
Thanks for your time.

END

Media Release : More boats arrive to remind ALP conference of Gillard's failure

Fri, 02 Dec 2011 13:00:00 GMT

The arrival of another 100 people on two more boats underscores the continued failure of the Gillard Government on border protection, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Scott Morrison and Shadow Minister for Justice, Customs and Border Protection, Michael Keenan said today.

“More than 1,200 people have arrived on boats since Labor further softened our borders by capitulating to the Greens. More people have arrived in just three days under Labor than in the last six years of the Howard Government,” Mr Morrison said.

“Labor's capitulation to the Greens with their on shore release policy has created a boat magnet for Australia at the most dangerous time of the year,” he said.

“While the Greens may not be physically at the Labor Party conference, they are clearly setting Labor's agenda.

“Labor is a party that is hopelessly divided and without conviction on border protection, they just don't believe in it.

“Julia Gillard has failed to deliver and is so ashamed of her failure on border protection she dared not even mention it in her speech to national conference yesterday.

“Today Minister Bowen will take a desperate deal to a divided party on border protection to maintain the pretence of a failed Malaysian people swap policy that his Government has already abolished, to maintain their surplus myth.

“Only the Coalition has the proven resolve and policies to restore integrity to our borders and our immigration programme,” Mr Morrison said.

Mr Keenan said: “These two boats are a timely reminder for the Labor party while their national party conference is on this weekend.

“Rather than pontificating about issues that have no real bearing on the lives of everyday Australians, they should be refocusing their debate on coming up with a real solution to Labor's border protection crisis.

“The illegal boat arrivals are not slowing down and the Gillard Labor Government have seen fit to slash the budget of the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service at a time when they are busier than ever cleaning up after Labor's collapsed border protection regime.

“Gillard and Labor cannot ignore this catastrophic situation any longer, this weekend they should look sensibly at the issue and bring some integrity back to Australia's borders,” Mr Keenan said.

Media Release : Real Julia emerges as border protection disappears from PM's agenda

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 13:00:00 GMT

The glaring omission of border protection from Julia Gillard’s speech to the Labor National Conference finally revealed her true intent on illegal boat arrivals – a full embrace of the policies of the Greens, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Scott Morrison said today.

“As people smugglers cram more people onto boats for the perilous journey to Australia at the most dangerous time of the year, the Prime Minister’s failure to put border protection on the agenda is a complete surrender to the policy of the Greens and also confirms the Malaysia people swap was nothing but a politically convenient smokescreen since it was struck down by the High Court,” Mr Morrison said.

“Julia Gillard’s surrender to the Greens will only result in more boats, more profits for people smugglers and more risk for those taking this dangerous journey,” he said.

“Today, the Prime Minister confirmed what we always knew - despite their pretence, border protection is just not a priority for Labor.

“In over 3,100 words today the Prime Minister did not mention borders, boats or Malaysia once. In her desperate attempt to appear tough on border protection at the Lowy Institute before the last election she used the word ‘boats’ 36 times.

“Julia Gillard said she would fix Labor's border protection chaos and she has hopelessly failed to do so. Now she is making the problem worse by softening our border protection policies even further in her capitulation to the Greens.

“Rather than embrace the proven policies of the Coalition, Julia Gillard has capitulated to the Greens and removed the final brick in the wall of the Howard Government’s border protection regime.

“Labor has returned Australia to the pre-Tampa policy of granting illegal arrivals the same status and rights of endless appeal as onshore asylum applicants and now wants to almost double our intake of refugees, at a cost of more than $1.35 billion over 4 years.

“Julia Gillard's Malaysia people swap has also been exposed as a smokescreen, after Labor abolished the policy in MYEFO without even putting it to a vote, discarding it in the same dust bin of failed policies as the East Timor farce before it.

“Julia Gillard’s endorsement of Greens policies means the Australian people now have a clear contrast between Labor and the Coalition on border protection, free of any spin from the Labor Party. Only the Coalition has the will and proven policies needed to restore order to our borders by stopping the boats.

“The Coalition in government will get our borders back under control and restore confidence in Australia’s immigration program lost so irresponsibly under this failed government and Prime Minister who has lost interest, if indeed she ever had a genuine interest” Mr Morrison said.

Media Release : Desperate Minister flags 30 for 1 people swap as two boats arrive

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 13:00:00 GMT

The arrival of two more illegal boats, with a total of 219 people on board, comes as this desperate Government adopts yet another policy of the Greens, an increase in Australia’s refugee intake which will cost over $1.3 billion, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Scott Morrison and Shadow Minister for Justice, Customs and Border Protection, Michael Keenan said today.

“These latest boat arrivals continue the disturbing trend of people smugglers crowding more people onto each boat, increasing the risk to increase their profits. These latest arrivals mean more than 7,200 people have arrived on illegal boats since Julia Gillard was appointed as Prime Minister,” Mr Morrison said.

“These arrivals come as the Minister plans to take a desperate deal to the Labor National Conference to shore up the Labor backbench, turning the failed 5 for 1 Malaysia people swap into a 30 for 1 deal,” he said.

“Minister Bowen's plan to almost double Australia's refugee intake to 20,000 would cost taxpayers $1.35 billion over four years or $216,000 per person. The last time Australia’s refugee intake was raised to such levels was when Australia was faced with a genuine regional refugee crisis, the Indochinese refugee emergency of the late 1970s and early 80s.

“Australia’s current generous refugee intake has bi-partisan support. A desperate Minister’s desperate deal to win over his own backbench for his own failed policy is no grounds to dramatically increase our intake.

“This Government abolished all semblance of offshore processing last week after running away from the Malaysia vote on the floor of the Parliament despite their dodgy deal over the speaker. Embracing yet another policy of the Greens while claiming to want to stop the boats exposes this yet again.

“Only the Coalition has the will and the proven policies to stop the boats and end the chaos that is Australia’s border protection regime,” Mr Morrison said.

Mr Keenan said: “These latest illegal arrivals are indicative of a Labor Government that has completely lost control of Australia's borders.

“The Gillard Labor Government this week announced further budget cuts to the Australian Federal Police and to the already stretched Australian Customs and Border Protection Service putting them under even greater pressure to do more with less.

“It is little wonder the people smugglers have sought to take advantage of the weakened state of Australia's national and border security by sending such large boat loads to our shores.

“In the lead up to the festive season, it would appear that the people smugglers will be celebrating while our frontline men and women are left to mop up Labor's border protection mess,” Mr Keenan said.

Speech : Transcript - Alan Jones Show 2GB

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 13:00:00 GMT

Speech

Transcript - Alan Jones Show 2GB

Thursday 1st December 2011

SUBJECT: another capitulation to the Greens - Bowen proposes raising refugee intake to 20,000, latest illegal boat arrival

E and OE

JONES:
Well Alan from you to a bloke who does know his stuff and has just rung in - Scott Morrison. Scott Morrison, good morning.

MORRISON:
Good morning Alan.

JONES:
What’s Bowen up to now? This absolutely useless Immigration Minister.

MORRISON:
Well he’s proposing that we lift our refugee intake to 20,000 a year. That’s what he’s going to take to the ALP’s faceless men and women this weekend. So not content with a five for one deal, he’s upped the anti for his ALP conference to 30 to 1. It would cost $1.35 billion -

JONES:
Hang on, what’s he saying? What’s he want to do?

MORRISON:
He wants to increase the refugee intake each year from 13,750 to 20,000. That’s what he’s going to propose to the ALP Conference at the weekend.

JONES:
Why?

MORRISON:
Because he says he needs that to represent his own view and that he thinks we should be taking more refugees but secondly he wants to do this deal with the Labor left to get support for his already failed Malaysian people swap.

JONES:
The people swap. So repeat to us again what that was?

MORRISON:
So that was 800 people go to Malaysia.

JONES:
Yes.

MORRISON:
4000 people come to Australia.

JONES:
Can you believe these people?

MORRISON:
That was a five for one deal. So now he’s going to propose a 30 for one deal to the ALP conference this weekend. The only other party that has a policy to take 20,000 people is the Greens. So once again, we’ve seen him capitulating to the Greens like he did last Friday – the biggest change to border protection policies since Kevin Rudd abolished the Pacific Solution and temporary protection visas. They’ve gone now to complete onshore release –

JONES:
And unsurprisingly the boats are coming at the rate of knots, aren’t they?

MORRISON:
We’ve had another one yesterday, a hundred people on that boat. And more and more people are getting on each individual boat at the moment which is increasing the risk for those people but it’s increasing the cost –

JONES:
And they’ve only got to arrive in our waters and bang they’re on Australia. Hotel Australia’s open.

MORRISON:
That is absolutely the case, they’ve abolished any pretence at offshore processing, they’ve refused to restore our policies and the boats keep coming and this Minister just simply has lost control.

JONES:
Lost control. You keep at it, you’re doing a great job.

MORRISON:
Thanks Alan.

JONES:
Scott Morrison.

Ends

Speech : Transcript - ABC Newsradio Breakfast

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 13:00:00 GMT

Speech

Transcript - ABC Newsradio Breakfast

Thursday 1st December 2011

SUBJECTS: Bowen proposes raising refugee intake to 20,000 in further capitulation to the Greens, gay marriage

E and OE

BENSON:
For an Opposition perspective, we’ve joined now by Shadow Immigration Spokesman Scott Morrison. Good morning Scott Morrison.

MORRISON:
G’day Marius.

BENSON:
Can I just ask you on that very narrow question – an increase from just under 14,000 to 20,000 – would you welcome that?

MORRISON:
Well the Minister has gone from a five for one swap to a thirty for one swap to take to the National Conference. I mean, the last time we increased to that level at 20,000 was when we had a genuine Indo-Chinese refugee crisis right on our back door. Now they’re the sort of circumstances when you entertain those sorts of increases. This would cost $1.35 billion over four years. $216,000 per additional intake you take over that period. So at the moment, I can’t see any grounds to warrant that sort of increase other than a desperate Minister trying to take a desperate deal to a Labor party that has been rolling over itself to agree with the Greens on border protection.

BENSON:
Can I just clarify the Opposition’s position – you in your latest proposal as I remember them, were suggesting there should be a 1,500 a year increase in the number of refugees coming to Australia up from just under 14,000 to plus 15,000…

MORRISON:
No, our policy was to increase the mandated refugee intake within the 13,750 from 6,000 to 7,500. We’ve also advocated a private sponsorship pilot program as is undertaken in Canada which would be fully costed and fully funded because it’s a private sponsorship program and we’d trial that program. So we’ve always been of the view that 13,750, which is the highest number per capita for resettlement of refugee and humanitarian entrants in the world, is a generous program, it’s a program that has bipartisan support and to lift it for some thirty for one deal at national conference we don’t think is the right way forward.

BENSON:
So that’s a firm no from you. Still it’s a long way from being even ALP policy let alone government action – the 20,000.

MORRISON:
Well there is no government policy. They abolished any remnant of offshore processing this week in the budget, they have no budget for their Malaysia proposal so I don’t know exactly how they propose to pursue a policy they actually abolished. But there’s no surprise they’ve abolished that policy. It had already failed. They abolished the policies four years ago from the Howard Government - that is the reason we’ve had all of the boats arrive, we’ve got another one reportedly today. 100 people. A lot more people are getting on the boats this year, Marius and that is a highly risky outcome at the most dangerous time of the year so the further announcements for onshore release only make that problem worst.

BENSON:
It’s a puzzling situation because you, the Opposition, are in favour of offshore detention, the Government is in favour of offshore detention but your mutual antagonism has resulted in the de-facto triumph of the Labor left and the Greens in ensuring onshore detention and as you say, boat arrivals.

MORRISON:
Well that’s the government’s policy though. It was the government’s decision to embrace the Greens’ policy of onshore release. The Coalition didn’t recommend that, the Coalition recommended restoring the policies we had when we were in government; offshore processing available in 148 countries and the government could do that tomorrow. They chose not to – that’s a matter for the government. I mean, Anthony Albanese –

BENSON:
But can I interrupt because the government policy is offshore processing in Malaysia and you say offshore processing but not in Malaysia.

MORRISON:
Well we think the Malaysia deal is a bad deal because it is bad for Australian taxpayers. It’s a bad deal and a cruel deal for the people involved –

BENSON:
Is it worse than onshore processing in your assessment?

MORRISON:
Well that’s a matter for the government to make those decisions, Marius, not an opposition and Anthony Albanese says all the time that he has to work with the Parliament that’s before him and he’s constantly rolling over to the Independents and the Greens. Now the Coalition has said we will support an amendment that enables offshore processing in countries that’ve signed the refugee convention because that is consistent with the protections we put in place in the Act ten years ago. Now if the government doesn’t want to agree with that, that’s a matter for the government, they’re at liberty to make that decision but they have made that choice to reject that amendment from the parliament and to go with an onshore release policy and to capitulate to the Greens so they’re the government, they’re responsible.

BENSON:
Scott Morrison can I just quickly ask you a question – nothing to do with your shadow portfolio – which is gay marriage, we’ve seen the Queensland government vote for civil unions overnight, the gay marriage debate is coming up at the ALP conference, a move for a conscience vote. Are you in favour of a conscience vote at all on the opposition’s side on that issue?

MORRISON:
Well we took a policy to the last election where we wouldn’t be making any changes to the Marriage Act.

BENSON:
So that’s it? That’s the binding position of the opposition?

MORRISON:
That’s the commitment we took to the last election so I think that’s fairly clear.

BENSON:
OK Scott Morrison thanks again.

MORRISON:
Thank you.

BENSON:
That’s Scott Morrison, the Shadow Immigration Minister.

Ends

Speech : Transcript - ABC News Breakfast

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 13:00:00 GMT

Speech

Transcript - ABC News Breakfast

Wednesday 30th November 2011

Subjects: Report into riots in Villawood and Christmas Island detention centres

E and OE

TRIOLI:
The Immigration Minister Chris Bowen was unavailable for interview this morning but the Opposition’s Spokesman Scott Morrison says the report shows the Minister has been inept. He joins us now from Sydney. Scott Morrison, good morning.

MORRISON:
Good morning Virginia.

TRIOLI:
This report, of course, was looking closely at the March mass escape and riot that took place on Christmas Island and general issues of overcrowding. Overcrowding was seen to have been a central problem in what occurred there.

MORRISON:
That’s right.

TRIOLI:
How is that an issue that could’ve been dealt with better by the Federal government, leaving to one side what I anticipate you’ll say about people not coming here in the first place. Given they were here, how could their presence have been handled better?

MORRISON:
Well maybe I could answer the question for you Virginia rather than you answering it for me. I mean, you don’t get overcrowding in a detention centre on its own. I mean people turned up on boats. That’s what occurred under this government’s policies and the border protection policies of this government led to a detention system that was overcrowded and collapsed under the network but beyond that the report then chronicles a series of systemic failings in the management of these centres and the oversight of the Department of Immigration and indeed the Minister. At the end of the day, the Minister is accountable for what happens in this detention network and I think one of the failings of the report is it doesn’t go to the heart of the issue – that there is responsibility in this system and it does rest with the government. I mean simple things like infrastructure upgrades that were highlighted as not being done in this report – we know through our detention inquiry had been brought to the Minister’s attention when he visited Christmas Island in October. So the Minister was well aware of the growing risks, of the needs of those centres to have upgrades to their security infrastructure, the electric fence wasn’t even switched on. At the end of the day, there’s someone accountable for that under our system and that’s the Minister.

TRIOLI:
Well the report also showed that Serco was warned of the March mass escape and riot yet in a teleconference with the Department in Canberra, the company dismissed that warning so what’s your judgement of Serco’s behaviour in all of this too?

MORRISON:
Well Serco sits within the system the government runs. The government can’t contract its responsibility –

TRIOLI:
Yes but it is a private operator that directly received that warning.

MORRISON:
To Serco. Virginia, they are responsible for the running of the system.

TRIOLI:
Yes.

MORRISON:
Now the arrangements between Serco and the Department of Immigration and Citizenship was highlighted in the report as requiring some significant attention in the contract and I think that’s something that the government should be doing. Clearly, the arrangements between DIAC and Serco are not producing the outcomes that we’d all want but the people responsible for getting that right are the government and DIAC and they should get it right. We’ve been here almost a year since these riots and none of those changes have been implemented.

TRIOLI:
Let’s look ahead to what your policy would be. So how would you deal with the frustrations of those who’d been rejected but were still here given that the legal review process would still be in place, how would you avoid that boiling over into what we’ve seen in the past?

MORRISON:
Well we would have to deal with the mess that Labour leaves behind for us, Virginia. I’ve said that on your program many times before and I don’t think that would be easy. But I don’t think the answer is what this government has done which has been simply to give the rioters at the end of the day what they wanted and that is that people are just being released and the government has now fully capitulated to the Greens with their policies of onshore release. So look it’s a difficult question and it would be a difficult issue to manage but we’d deal with it the same way we did last time and we’d do that particularly by reducing the population by having effective policies that didn’t see boats come to Australia. The decision the government took last Friday will act as the biggest magnet for boat arrivals since Kevin Rudd abolished the border protection regime they inherited from John Howard almost four years ago. The government is making things worse not better.

TRIOLI:
Yeah but Scott Morrison, you still, you still haven’t answered that question of how you would then deal with that situation not boiling over. All I’ve taken from that answer is you’d deal with it as you did last time. Now last time, there were of course places at Baxter and Woomera. Is that what you’re talking about?

MORRISON:
No. Well, remember last time when we left office, there were four people in detention, Virginia. That’s how we dealt with it last time. We dealt with the core source of the problem. It’s amazing that this report makes no mention of the fact that the government’s failed border protection policies filled up the detention centres. It’s a bit like talking about a flood and not making any reference to the rain that caused it and that’s what we have to understand with this issue. Unless we deal with that core cause of the problem then these issues will go on and what the government has done has simply decided to just open everything up. Now there are facilities that’ve been put in place which I would welcome, particularly the one up at Wickham Point. I’ve seen that facility, I think it’s a good facility and I think that will help manage better the issues in detention. I’m going up to Scherger tomorrow and I’ll take a good look at the running of that centre as well but I don’t think the answer is to simply throw open the doors which is, at the end of the day, what the rioters were asking for.

TRIOLI:
Well time is running very short so I have to keep this short and I apologise for that, Scott Morrison, but on that issue of, which is the mantra of the Opposition, of stopping the boats, we’ve heard from the navy, we’ve heard from the defence force about how reintroducing that system that operated under John Howard – the navy resented it deeply, you’ve got people like retired Army Brigadier Gary Bornholt saying that it was a disaster to put asylum seekers and ADF personnel at risk to ask them to turn around boats. Is that still your policy?

MORRISON:
Of course it’s our policy and the current head of the navy -

TRIOLI:
So you’re going to put the navy at risk, the navy doesn’t want to do this –

MORRISON:
If you let me finish the answer, Virginia. You’ve asked the question. The answer is that the current head of the navy made it very clear that when he was actually a Commander at the time, he had two occasions – on one occasion he could do it, on one occasion he couldn’t do it. And that’s the policy we’d follow plus temporary protection visas plus offshore processing at Nauru and all the other measures which you know we’ve announced time and again.

TRIOLI:
Which the Greens won’t support.

MORRISON:
Offshore processing at Nauru can be done under the current law.

TRIOLI:
Alright Scott Morrison we are short of time, I’m sorry about that. We’ll leave it there but thanks for joining us.

MORRISON:
Thanks very much, Virginia, always a pleasure.

Ends

Speech : Transcript - Sky News AM Agenda

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 13:00:00 GMT

Speech

Transcript - Sky News AM Agenda

Wednesday 30th November 2011

Subjects: MYEFO immigration budget, Report into Villawood and Christmas Island detention centre riots

EandOE

KIERAN GILBERT:
Yesterday in a news release you said ‘today the Minister has promised that his onshore release policy will not cost taxpayers an extra cent.’ That is not true though is it? MYEFO suggested it will cost a net $200 million. Did you misread the budget update?

MORRISON:
No. What it said is that the net cost to the Department will not cost them anything more and what we have found with this government is that every time they have forecast something on their border protection costs they blow out. So we won’t know the full cost of this until the costs are actually incurred and importantly the costs do not include the costs that state and territory governments will bear in terms of policy and health and education and a range of other things they are not being compensated for as a result of the community release scheme. I know in NSW in particular the police force is very, very worried about what this will mean for them.

GILBERT:

It is misleading though isn’t it to suggest the Minister said it won’t cost an extra cent when MYEFO does factor in that net $200 million increase for the onshore processing?

MORRISON:

No, across the whole Department they are saying they have been able to find savings to offset what they think the cost will be. So they are saying that the net position coming out of this arrangement will be no worse off. Now we will see whether that is true but based on this Government’s form and this Minister’s form…

GILBERT:

But that is not what they said. They said it was going to cost $200 million.

MORRISON:

No, I am sorry Kieran that is not what they said. What they said was the net position right across the whole department was they were going to come out ahead, in fact, with the savings they have by walking away from Malaysia. At the end of the day this government will be held to account for what this costs. They are saying it won’t get any worse than the current situation and we will see what happens. The last two years it has blown out by more than $2 billion so they have very poor form on this front and I will hold this minister to account for what he is going to spend.

GILBERT:

We saw the review into the Christmas Island and Villawood detention centre riots. No real surprises there, we know the system is under stress don’t we? It is pretty obvious.

MORRISON:

Well it is no shock that it was under stress. This is a government whose border protection policies failed, detention centres filled and then they had warning after warning after warning and then the rioters burnt the places down while the Minister was aware of those warnings coming through the system. What has he done since then? Well his answer has been just to let everyone out. The government’s response has been to just let people out.

GILBERT:

But Shadow Minister what other options do they have if you aren’t going to allow them to implement the policy they want to implement?

MORRISON:

Well they can implement our proven policies. The government has decided they think it is better to release people with an onshore release program into the community than adopting the proven policies of the Howard Government they abolished. That is the choice they have made. That was the choice available to the government and they will be held accountable for that decision as I am sure we will see boat after boat after boat come. They have made this announcement to capitulate to the Greens at the most dangerous time of the year to get on a boat. So this is the government’s decision. It has happened on their watch and I will be holding them to account.

GILBERT:

You have called on the Parliament to come back to vote on the Malaysia deal. Why are you dong that, particularly when you are adamant that you are going to vote against it anyway and you would be blocking it in the Parliament, so why bring the Parliament back to a vote?

MORRISON:

Well if the Minister is serious he now has the numbers in the House of Representatives. So this has been one elaborate smokescreen for months, ever since the High Court knocked this out the government has engaged in this fancy where they have said they were going to go through with this measure. Now they have the numbers in the House to pas their own bill they scurried out of the Parliament and now they have wiped the solution off the books of MYEFO. This was nothing but a smokescreen to do what they always wanted to do and that is to capitulate to the Greens. Bob Brown now has every single thing that he wanted on asylum policy for Christmas and he doesn’t even believe in Christmas.

GILBERT:

Isn’t it just a stunt though to call on them to bring it back when you are going to vote against it anyway?

MORRISON:

No it exposes the hypocrisy and the lie of this government. They said they wanted this Bill passed through the House of Representatives. We made it very clear before they introduced it into the House of Representatives what our position would be in both houses. So they can’t blame what may happen in the Senate when they had the numbers to get the Bill through in the House last Thursday. They did not put it to a vote, did not extend sitting hours and have not recalled Parliament on a day that was reserved for sitting. The government’s position has been exposed as nothing more than a political smokescreen to cover their capitulation to the Greens yet again.

GILBERT:

Scott Morrison, thanks for your time again this morning.

MORRISON:

Thanks a lot Kieran. Good to be with you.

END

Speech : Transcript - Ray Hadley Morning Show

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 13:00:00 GMT

Speech

Transcript - Ray Hadley Morning Show

Wednesday 30th November 2011

Subjects: Report on riots in Villawood and Christmas Island detention centres, Immigration Department advising boat arrivals with adverse ASIO assessments to apply for community release, difference between asylum seekers arriving by plane vs boat

E and OE

HADLEY:
One of our reporters, as I mentioned, Stephanie Borys went to the media conference yesterday called by the lamentable minister Chris Bowen. She got there at twenty past 12, was handed a 187 page report and she asked the question how in the world can you ask the Minister detailed and proper questions about a 187 page review which you get 10 minutes to skim. Someone else was concerned and put the question to the Minister at that media conference -

JOURNALIST:
Minister, given that we’ve had about five minutes to digest the 200 page report –

BOWEN:
A little bit more than that but yeah –

JOURNALIST:
Well ten minutes to digest a 200 page report before being given the opportunity to ask questions about it, would you mind just taking us through briefly who or, perhaps all of you could, what were the factors that were responsible for these riots?

HADLEY:
Well we didn’t get the answer but we got a bit of obfuscation there as I welcome the Opposition spokesman Scott Morrison to the studio. He said ‘oh well, a bit longer than that’. We do apologise most sincerely - the reporter got it horribly wrong. To preview the 187 page report, they got 10 minutes, not five.

MORRISON:
Yes that’s right. I mean this is an admission of guilt, I think, by the government. I mean, they had this report since 31 August. They had it for 3 months, 20 sitting days of parliament went by as this report sat on the Minister’s desk and then they release it on the same day as the budget update in a bid to cover it over so the tactics here smell the same as all the same things we used to see from the NSW State government and that’s not surprising because Chris Bowen the Minister was schooled by Carl Scully and others.

HADLEY:
I just don’t quite understand and I’ll get back to the other report from the Ombudsman that came out last week but one of two independent people Dr Hawke said, when quizzed about that there were no adverse findings against any agency or individual - ‘you might be into assigning blame and fault, ‘I think we’re into finding solutions and recommending better ways of handling it in the future. I thought you investigated things to make sure they weren’t replicated - if you found someone or some organisation that buggered it up, you told them, you identified them and you moved the next step to say right, you should either learn from your mistakes or vacate the chair.

MORRISON:
Well I think that’s right and this report failed to do that. The reviewers failed to do that, I mean they obfuscated on the issue of blame. They didn’t give anyone any absolution on the issue of blame and as I said, I think, the Government is very aware of its own guilt in this process, I think they were very ashamed of how this whole sorry saga ended because, I mean, they had plenty of warnings and this report showed there were warnings. I remember in this very studio the incident you talked about at Villawood where there was an explosive device well before those Villawood riots – it’s not even mentioned in this report; it’s not even touched on.

HADLEY:
What in 187 pages, they hadn’t spoken to NSW or Federal police about this device –

MORRISON:
That’s right.

HADLEY:
Which at the time, the Minister said it was a can of spray and as we found out later from serving men and women, it’s the type of device that maims and kills people in Iraq and Afghanistan.

MORRISON:
Well that’s true and also these types of devices were those aerosols and various other things that they believe was how the other fires were started so the report also shows, Ray, that it wasn’t the first time that this Department didn’t apparently tell people about it. They had a consultant’s report up on Christmas Island identify in October the weaknesses there were on security and other things and they just sat there. This Minister literally sat there while the detention centres burned.

HADLEY:
Your memory will be better than mine. We spoke on air after the riots on Christmas Island about that jet that I think 187 people had occupied, brought ten people back to either go to Silverwater jail or Villawood.

MORRISON:
Yes.

HADLEY:
And the question being asked by Gordon from Bangor. Ray, were any of those people actually charged for what they did on Christmas Island and if so, where are they now? What’s happened to them and are they among the people that the Ombudsman says – the Ombudsman says that they are being released into community detention. Those people now. Do you have any further information on that?

MORRISON:
There are still some – of the cases that are still going, and a number of them were dropped by the Director of Public Prosecutions but no one has yet been convicted of anything, there are cases still before the courts on the remaining cases. The Ombudsman’s report though is interesting because what is says is the Department of Immigration is saying to people with a negative ASIO security assessment, oh well you’re allowed to apply for community release now. Now the Minister in responding to the Ombudsman’s report makes no mention, no defence about that department practice. I see today in the Daily Telegraph when it was about to embarrass him, he all of a sudden says that’s a load of rubbish. Well he had the chance to say it was rubbish in his official response so clearly the Department is now saying, consistent with the government’s onshore release policy, the only thing they’ve done since the riots, Ray is decide to let everyone out, which is what the rioters want.

HADLEY:
He says none of the detainees referred to have been or will be granted community detention. He doesn’t comment on the fact that department officials told the Ombudsman they could now apply to be released for community detention.

MORRISON:
That’s right, he should be investigating - as soon as he found about this - that there was a practise of department officials saying to people who had a negative security assessment they should apply to be released into the community, he should’ve found out who was saying that, why they were saying that and ended the practise. It’s taken this report in the Daily Telegraph and a referral of that Ombudsman’s report to the Telegraph to actually get this issue before the Minister.

HADLEY:
Someone ripped into to me in the Sydney Morning Herald In relation to the NSW Attorney-General calling me, my listeners, people associated with me ‘rednecks’ saying I’m deserving of that tag given my stand over the Illegal boat people. Well if that’s a badge of honour, I wear it very proudly. Very very proudly.

MORRISON:
I imagine I’m wearing it with you Ray.

HADLEY:
Simply because we don’t know what sort of people we’re getting here. Now we now have a set of circumstances where those arriving illegally who discard their passports either in Malaysia, Indonesia or overboard on the vessel they arrive on are being compared in terms of the way they’re dealt with, with people who arrive here with either visas or papers on an aeroplane. Now if you can try to explain to me, the author of that article or anyone else, that you can give me some verification or satisfaction that the people arriving without papers are who they say they are and are not criminals, are not the sort of undesirables we don’t want here, compared with people we know what they’ve done, who they are and what they’ve come from, I don’t quite understand that at all.

MORRISON:
Well they’re ignoring the facts and the facts are these when you’re comparing people who arrive by plane and people who arrive by boat. No one dies on a plane coming here, number one. Secondly, only about one in ten people who come by boat have documentation compared to almost one hundred percent of those who come by plane. We know who they are, they’ve been pre-cleared. Those who’ve come by boat wouldn’t have been able to get a visa to come by plane so we’ve already made the distinction at that point. ASIO told us last week, Ray, at the detention inquiry that those who came by boat are more than twenty times more likely to get an ASIO negative assessment than for all of the other visas they assessed and in the last three years, not one person who arrived by plane got a negative assessment. So the evidence I think there in terms of these people who come by plane and boat are clear and that’s why we had in government clear processes to deal with them differently. This government has now abolished that. They abolished it last Friday in the biggest reversal on border protection policy since Kevin Rudd got rid of the Pacific Solution and temporary protection visas. Bob Brown now has everything he wanted on asylum policy and he got it for Christmas and he didn’t even have to believe in Christmas.

HADLEY:

Refresh my memory again because I’m getting emails about it and we deal with that much here, in relation to the men who were adversely mentioned in a Coroner’s inquiry about the deaths of people on a boat that they set fire to. They haven’t been charged and I, from recollections in discussions with you, not only have they not been charged despite adverse findings for some of them from the Coroner’s inquest, they’ve also been granted some form of asylum and are here.

MORRISON:
They have permanent residence in Australia. They’ve never been charged and they have permanent residence. If you go back to late 2009 when there was the first riot on Christmas Island, two people were convicted – convicted - of their offences and they have visas as well. I mean, this government time and again, when the answer is to either go strong or soft, they go soft. And on Friday they went soft in full measure and they did it at the most dangerous time of year for someone to get on a boat so they are accountable for what happens.

HADLEY:
You’ve been on the ABC TV this morning they tell me.

MORRISON:
Yes I have.

HADLEY:
Well some of my listeners – I unfortunately – well maybe fortunately – I watch Sky News most of the morning, I find it pretty informative, I don’t get much time and it would appear many of my listeners and the population generally don’t have time to watch the ABC 24 hour program based on the figures I see from time to time but you had an interesting confrontation with a presenter there. Let’s have a listen to it -

VIRGINIA TRIOLI:
Overcrowding was seen to have been an essential problem in what occurred there.

MORRISON:
That’s right.

TRIOLI:
How is that an issue that could’ve been dealt with better by the Federal government, leaving to one side what I anticipate you’ll say about people not coming here in the first place - given they were here, how could they – they’re presence – be handled better?

MORRISON:
Well maybe I can answer the question for you, Virginia, rather than you answering it for me. You don’t get overcrowding at a detention centre on its own. I mean, people turned up on boats. That’s what occurred under this government’s policies and the border protection policies of this government led to a detention system that was overcrowded and collapsed under the network.

HADLEY:
All I’ll say in relation to – and I suspect that was Virginia Trioli who unsuccessfully attempted to take us on between 9 and midday on the ABC a number of years ago – that if anyone ever criticises me over my stance as was evident in the Sydney Morning Herald on Saturday, I’ll simply say that I’m here to counter the balance of bias on the ABC as was evident by her attempt to ask a question, answer the question and sew you up.

MORRISON:
You sort of wonder why you’re participating in those interviews when they’re seeking to answer a question before you’ve even answered it. But look I’ve had a lot of celebrated exchanges with Virginia, I’ll have a lot more in the future and I’ll take up the debate whether it’s obviously here with you Ray, or on the ABC or anywhere else and I’m always happy to take interviews wherever they are.

HADLEY:
Well I find it amazing that the article in the Sydney Morning Herald was tearing me apart for having the audacity to question the motives of a Liberal Minister in New South Wales at the same time I’m described as a redneck which would suggest that I’m a rightwing commentator and yet I’m tearing up a Liberal Minister in Greg Smith for his performance as the Attorney-General in NSW. Seems to be a strange conflict of values there.

MORRISON:
Well I think that’s right Ray and it’s always great to come on the program but I would say this - there has been a campaign I think from the government and those who have had a particular issue of difference with the Coalition on border protection policy – to demonise not only listeners of this program but of similar programs and to somehow suggest that there is something wrong with them because they think Australia should have a proper border protection policy. Now we will always stand up for those people and we will always stand up for stronger borders.

HADLEY:
Let’s finally go out with another part of that Chris Bowen press conference from yesterday -

JOURNALIST:
Minister, given the public’s intense interest in the economy and immigration issues, whose idea was it to share your press conference with Mr Swan’s simultaneously?

BOWEN:
Well they’re not quite simultaneous and they are in different cities and I note that you’re here in large numbers and I’m sure we’ll read about this in the newspapers tomorrow and we’ll see it on the news tonight. This is a press conference which has been scheduled for several weeks to match Dr Hawke’s diary, my diary and Mrs Williams’ diary. This is not something that was done on the spur of the moment. We’ve been planning this press conference for this day for several weeks and Government Ministers in different cities make announcements on the same day all the time and not much should be read into that.

HADLEY:
Well I’m afraid Minister we’ll have to read a bit into it. You’ve been sitting on it to coincide your diaries with the authors of the report for quite some time and all of a sudden the stars align within one hour of the Federal Treasurer making his announcements about the Budget deficit growing from $22 billion to $37 billion. What a coincidence.

MORRISON:
Well I think what it shows is they hatched this plan to bury this report several months ago to avoid Parliament when it was sitting and to time its release at exactly the time when they thought it would have the least impact. It’s an absolute admission of guilt on the part of this Minister and he’s a Minister who has presided over a detention network in absolute chaos. I’m going up to see a bit more of it tomorrow, Ray, up in Scherger in far North Queensland and I’ll have a look at what’s going on up there.

HADLEY:
We’ll get a report from you Friday. Thank you.

MORRISON:
Thanks a lot Ray.

HADLEY:
Scott Morrison, the Shadow Spokesman on Immigration.

Ends

Media Release : Labor policy failures collapse detention network as rioters get what they wanted

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 13:00:00 GMT

The delayed release of the Government report into the Christmas Island and Villawood detention centre riots reveals a cascade of Government policy failures and mismanagement that led to the collapse our detention network, and a Government now in retreat giving the rioters what they wanted, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Scott Morrison said today.

“The Hawke/Williams report confirms what we already know - that the government stood by as our detention centres filled up and became powder kegs under Labor’s failed border protection policies,” Mr Morrison said.

“Labor’s only response to date has been to give the rioters what they rioted for and to let them out under their new on shore release policy announced last Friday,” he said.

“Overcrowding was the key contributing factor, compounded by a failure to respond to the mounting pressures in the network and heed the numerous warnings of the trouble that was brewing.

“This Government and this Minister literally stood by while our detention centres burned.

“As the boats continued to arrive, the Government was locked in denial on their myriad policy failures, such as the discriminatory asylum freeze and East Timor debacle. To this day they still cling to failed policy rather than adopt the proven solutions of the Coalition.

“The riots were an inevitable consequence of Labor’s failure to protect our borders and abolish the effective border protection regime they inherited from the Howard Government.

“When the Coalition left office there were just four people in detention who had arrived by boat. Under Labor’s policies, this number increased to more than 6,000 detainees and they burned our centres down.

“The government’s decision to capitulate to the Greens and now further soften our border protection policy, throwing open the doors of our detention centres, will create a boat magnet for Australia at the most dangerous time of the year and export the problems in our detention centres to the community, leaving and State and Territory Governments to pick up the bill.

“The failure of the report to assign blame is obfuscation on the part of the authors rather than absolution for the government.

“Labor has admitted their shame and guilt on this matter by refusing to release the report for three months, avoiding twenty sitting days of parliament, and releasing it under the cover of MYEFO.

“The reality is under this government and this Minister’s failed policies there has been a rolling crisis in our immigration detention network as the boats started coming and detention centres filled.

“On this Minister’s watch warnings of unrest were ignored, upgrades to security of infrastructure were not undertaken, electric fences were not switched on, staff were not trained, response plans were not in place and confusion reigned as to who was responsible to sort out the mess.

“Many of the issues identified in the report remain unaddressed to this day. Almost 80% of detainees at the Curtin detention centre have had at least one negative assessment and more people are being taken to the centre from Christmas Island as the boats continue to arrive.

“This is a Minister who cannot run away from his failure and responsibility for the chaos in our immigration detention network. Just like the abandoned and failed Malaysian people swap, the Australian people understand failure when they see it and Minister Bowen’s handling of immigration detention has proven to be inept in the findings of failure in this report on his watch,” Mr Morrison said.

Media Release : MYEFO confirms failure of Malaysian people swap as Labor capitulates to Greens

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 13:00:00 GMT

The MYEFO today confirms that Labor's Malaysian people swap has joined Labor's other failed policies including the East Timor non solution, as Labor embraces the Greens policy of onshore release, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Scott Morrison said today.

“MYEFO confirms that the government has abandoned all pretence on offshore processing and that their claims to be pursuing their Malaysian people swap after its failure in the High Court was nothing but a smokescreen for Labor to embrace the Greens policies,” Mr Morrison said.

“Just as in last year’s MYEFO there was no mention of the East Timor processing centre, this year the Malaysia solution has also been expunged from government policy,” he said.

“Labor abandoned their failed Malaysian people swap without even putting it to a vote, even after securing the numbers needed in the House of Representatives with their grubby deal on the speakership.

“Under Kevin Rudd Labor abolished offshore processing and Julia Gillard will not restore it.

“Rather than restore the proven policy of offshore processing on Nauru, Julia Gillard has chosen to embrace the onshore release policy of the Greens. This will create a boat magnet for illegal arrivals that will lead to further cost and chaos and increase the risk of further tragedies at sea.

“MYEFO demonstrates that Labor has learnt nothing from their billion dollar budget blowouts on border protection failures in recent years.

“Labor has continued their back of the envelope approach to its border protection budget. A government that has already blown $2 billion on boat arrivals in the past two years now asks the Australian people to believe their latest failures will not cost taxpayers a single cent.

“Just this year the government framed its Budget on 750 people arriving by boat. So far more than two and a half times that number has arrived.

“The government has also made no provision for the additional costs likely to be incurred by the States and Territories after shifting the burden of illegal arrivals from immigration detention onto the community.

“Advice from NSW Government officials confirms that health, education, policing and housing resources will all be impacted. NSW will be particularly affected as a sizeable number of arrivals are expected to live there. State taxpayers will be forced to foot the bill as the Gillard Government seeks to shift the cost of their border protection failures to the states.

“Today the Minister has promised that his onshore release policy will not cost taxpayers an extra cent. If he fails to deliver on this promise it will be just one more reason why this Minister should resign,” Mr Morrison said.

Speech : Transcript - MTR Vizard program

Sun, 27 Nov 2011 13:00:00 GMT

Speech

Transcript - MTR Vizard program

Monday 28th November 2011

Subject: Labor’s capitulation to the Greens on illegal boat arrivals

EandOE

VIZARD:

This is an interesting development isn’t it?

MORRISON:

Well it looks like Bob Brown has got everything he wanted for Christmas on asylum policy and he didn’t even have to believe in Christmas.

VIZARD:

This is, straight up and down, the Greens’ stated objective isn’t it?

MORRISON:

This is complete capitulation. Julia Gillard has finished the job that Kevin Rudd started almost four years ago when he got rid of the Pacific Solution and temporary protection visas, the last remaining element of what I call John Howard’s wall on border protection. The last brick has gone with that decision. The government had the choice between restating the policy of offshore processing on Nauru or going down this path after the High Court decision and they have gone down the path of the Greens and this is a terrible decision at the most dangerous time of the year in which to encourage people to get on boats but that is what the government have done.

VIZARD:

There are two aspects to this. I just want to explore both. One is the substantive part of this policy, why should you have a differential policy for boat arrivals and plane arrivals? I want to ask you that one second. The first part of it is actually irrespective of the substance of the policy, this policy that has now been so fulsomely embraced by our government is not the policy they went to an election on, not the policy they put to the Australian people and not the policy they tried to get up. So irrespective of the merits of it, by their own measures this is never where they intended to be.

MORRISON:

No they led people to believe before the last election, not just led them but actually said, they were going to defeat the people smugglers and were going to take a strong position on this and they have done none of the sort. They have actually rolled back the clock pre the Tampa, more than ten years, and what they have said is if you get on a boat now within weeks, months or so you will be in the community, you will have work rights, access to medical care, all of these things and it doesn’t matter whether you are a refugee or not. If it is a no you can have full access to our courts with taxpayer funded appeals for years. People prior to the Tampa and those before we introduced these policies a decade ago, were pursuing appeals in the courts for a decade. This is not just a pound of sugar they have put on the table it is the entire sugar factory. It is really a disgraceful decision.

VIZARD:

I wanted to contextualise this Scott. Approximately 60,000 illegal immigrants are in Australia at any point in time, people who came here mainly by plane but have overstayed their visas. Where do you see these two issues lining up? Why aren’t those 58,400 people as of much concern to the Australian population, to the government, to you, as to everyone, as people who arrive by boat?

MORRISON:

Well first of all it is not 60,000 arriving every year. That has been the standing population of people in that situation for at least the last 20 years and that situation has not gotten worse or better over that period of time and it should remain an issue of focus. But here is why boat and plane arrivals should be treated differently. Firstly people who come by plane seeking asylum do not die. That is what happens to people who come by boat and one in five people getting on these boats are children. Secondly those arriving by boat have no documentation. Only one in ten had any form of documentation and we do not know who they are. People who come by boat would not be able to come by plane. People from those countries or seeking to come by plane would be denied a visa for access to Australia. Those who come by plane have a visa, a passport and we know who they are. Therefore thirdly it is not surprising then that those who came by plane and sought asylum in the last three years at least and probably longer not one of them got a negative ASIO assessment. The likelihood of someone coming by boat and getting a negative ASIO assessment is more than 20 times greater than all the other categories ASIO looks at. The other point is this Steve, we have a queue according to the UNHCR of at least 100,000 people around the world today who are in most urgent need of resettlement. There are 100,000 places short and we should be ensuring our program addresses their need and none of those 100,000 are on their way to Australia by boat.

VIZARD:

Scott Morrison, always good to talk to you.

MORRISON:

Thanks Steve.

END

Media Release : Gillard must recall Parliament to bring on vote on Malaysian smokescreen

Fri, 25 Nov 2011 13:00:00 GMT

Julia Gillard must immediately recall Parliament and call on the vote for the Government's Migration Act changes for their Malaysian people swap or admit it has just been a political smokescreen to cover their capitulation to the Greens on border protection, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Scott Morrison said today.

“Labor's failure to bring on the vote for their Migration Act Amendment Bill this week after securing the numbers in the parliament with their grubby deal on the Speakership, has exposed their pretence on Malaysia as a political smokescreen" Mr Morrison said.

“Julia Gillard demanded that all Members of Parliament have their names and votes recorded on her Migration Act offshore processing Bill, declaring it as urgent and in the national interest,” he said.

“Yet on the final day of the Parliament this year, when she had secured the votes she needed to pass the Bill in the House of Representatives with her grubby deal on the Speaker, she refused to have the vote and scurried away from the Parliament.

"The next day the Government announced the biggest roll back on border protection since Kevin Rudd abolished the Pacific Solution and temporary protection visas.

“It is clear that Julia Gillard has simply been using the Malaysian people swap and her flawed Migration Act amendment legislation as a smokescreen on border protection to blame the Opposition for the Government's own failures and hide their complete capitulation to the Greens and Bob Brown.

“If the Government is serious about their changes to the Migration Act for offshore processing they will recall parliament for Monday and have the vote. Failure to have the vote again will prove that the proposed changes were just another political smokescreen to cover their capitulation to the Greens and further weaken our border protection regime.

“The parliament has reserved several days this week to sit to consider any urgent matters. If the Government is serious they will use the days to have a vote on the Migration Act amendments and allow their crisis mini budget to be scrutinized by the Parliament.

“As we enter the most dangerous time of the year for boat journeys with the onset of the monsoon season, the Government's decision to swing the door open even further to boat arrivals, is reckless and dangerous.

“A Government who claims to want to provide a deterrent on boat arrivals would never do this. Their actions prove their false conversion on border protection. They can’t be trusted, they can’t be believed.

“Australia deserves better than a Prime Minister who ran from Parliament to avoid a vote on her Malaysia smokescreen while opening up a sea lane to people smugglers at the most dangerous time of the year to make boat journeys to Australia,” Mr Morrison said.

Media Release : Gillard removes final brick in Howard's wall on border protection and swings door open to boats

Thu, 24 Nov 2011 13:00:00 GMT

The Government completed their capitulation to the Greens today on border protection, with their decision to treat boat arrivals the same as those who legally entered the country and to end mandatory detention by releasing single male detainees who have not been found to be refugees into the community, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Scott Morrison said today.

“Julia Gillard has removed every brick in John Howard’s wall on border protection and has flung the door open to illegal boat arrivals on the eve of the monsoon season, the most dangerous time of year to travel,” Mr Morrison said.

“Julia Gillard finished the job Kevin Rudd started four years ago by completely abandoning all the proven border protection policies of the Howard government. They have set back the clock on border protection to pre the Tampa, more than ten years ago.

“The Government has completely rolled over to the Greens, opening up a sea lane for people smugglers.

“People who arrive illegally by boat will now be released from detention and have access to all the onshore processes denied them by the Howard Government.

“Single males who have not been found to be refugees, as opposed to just children and vulnerable people, will be released into the community, effectively ending mandatory detention.

“Failed asylum seekers who arrive by boat will now be able to stay in Australia for years to pursue their claims through the Refugee Review Tribunal and endlessly in the courts, with broader grounds of appeal, while living and working in the community.

“A Government who claims to want to provide a deterrent on boat arrivals would never do this. Their actions today prove their false conversion on border protection. They can’t be trusted, they can’t be believed.

“The same motives and lack of resolve that led them to abolish the Pacific Solution and temporary protection visas almost four years ago, are the same as those behind today’s decision.

“This is further demonstrated by the Government’s failure to have a vote on their Migration Act amendments in the Parliament yesterday.

“After their grubby deal on the Speaker, the Government had the numbers to pass their Migration Bill in the Parliament. Yet rather than have the vote, they ran, passing up the opportunity to have the Bill passed.

“It is clear that only the Coalition can be trusted to protect our borders,” Mr Morrison said.

Media Release : ASIO tells inquiry illegal boat arrivals 20 times more likely to receive negative security assessments

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 13:00:00 GMT

Evidence provided by ASIO to the Immigration Detention Inquiry last night shows illegal boat arrivals are 20 times more likely to be given a negative ASIO security assessment than other cases considered by ASIO, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Scott Morrison said today.

“Last night the Director-General of ASIO David Irvine quoted statistics to the Immigration Detention Inquiry set up by the Opposition, that reveal since 1 January 2010, 54 negative assessments have been handed down on just under 7,000 cases of asylum seekers who had arrived by boat, referred to ASIO for assessment,” Mr Morrison said.

“By comparison, over a two year period ASIO handed down just 24 adverse security findings out of 66,000 other applications referred to them for assessment by DIAC. This means that illegal boat arrivals are over twenty times more likely to be given a negative assessment,” he said.

“Also of interest was the fact that no asylum seekers who had arrived legally in Australia, presumably by air, and sought protection, had been given a negative security assessment for at least the past three years.

“This is not surprising as those who arrive legally in Australia, predominantly by air, have a passport and a visa for entry and have already gone through pre clearance processes.

“Throughout the debate over asylum seeker policy there has been much discussion about the differential procedures followed for asylum seekers who arrive illegally by boat and legally by air.

“Given the fact that 87% of those who arrive by boat have no documentation, compared to less than 1% for plane arrivals and based on ASIO’s evidence are more likely to receive an adverse security finding than plane arrivals, these are serous considerations that cannot be ignored.

“The Coalition stands by the necessity to conduct rigorous assessment of people who arrive by boat, especially for those who have no documentation in order to establish their identity and security status. It is also why it is Coalition policy to presume against refugee status where we reasonably believe a person who has arrived illegally has deliberately discarded their documentation.

“The best protection though is to restore proven policies that stop the boats coming to Australia. These policies were abolished by Labor which led to more than 13,400 people coming to Australia by boat, including more than 6,000 since the last election. This is why our detention network is in crisis.

“Those who come by boat are taking the places under our refugee and humanitarian programme that would otherwise go to refugees and other vulnerable people applying through the proper offshore process, who made more than 54,000 applications last year.

“Make no mistake there is a queue of desperate people seeking to gain access to our resettlement programme. It may not be orderly, but it does exist. This was confirmed last night in evidence by, Rick Towle, UNHCR Regional Representative.

“Mr Towle confirmed that there were 180,000 refugees in urgent need of resettlement and just 80,000 places around the world to support them. He also said these 180,000 people were part of a broader group of 750,000 refugees the UNHCR believed were in need of resettlement. In total he said there were more than 10 million refugees around the world.

“Mr Towle said Australia had one of the most generous refugee and humanitarian resettlement programmes in the world and confirmed the need for countries to triage resettlement places that were available.

“Stopping boats illegally coming to Australia ensures we can provide more places to people in that queue and restore the sovereignty and integrity of our refugee and humanitarian programme,” Mr Morrison said.

Media Release : Coalition calls on government to support key agencies to enfore new people trafficking laws

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 13:00:00 GMT

The Coalition welcomes moves to strengthen the law in relation to people trafficking offences announced today as part of today’s Fourth National Roundtable on People Trafficking. These laws are only as good as the enforcement behind them. The Coalition therefore calls on the Government to ensure enforcement agencies have the resources and support to give these new laws real meaning.

The Coalition is well known for our strong stand on border protection. We equally have a longstanding interest and record in combating cross border crime. We therefore welcome the opportunity to support measures that will further aid in this important fight on people trafficking that has resulted from the Roundtable process on People Trafficking.

The Coalition believes that not only do we have to make laws that criminalise and punish this behaviour we must also ensure that we enforce these laws and that our police, immigration and border protection agencies have the resources and support to do the job.

While we welcome the announcement, the Government has failed to match these new laws with additional resources to ensure they will be enforced and we call on the Government to address this in the Treasurer’s crisis mini-budget.

The Coalition has been particularly concerned about the approximately $177 million in cuts to enforcement agencies including the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service, the Australian Federal Police, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation and the Australian Crime Commission - agencies which are integral to the fight against people trafficking.

Meanwhile, the Government’s failed border protection policies have gridlocked the immigration department, reducing their capacity to take up the fight in these areas. Even the unions agree. In evidence provided to the detention Inquiry last nite, the Community and Public Sector Union stated the Immigration Department is overstretched, compromising their capacity to implement core functions.

The Coalition is especially concerned about the potential for abuse of our immigration programme and will take a tough approach in Government to ensuring integrity in how visas are issued, whether it is for skilled migration, family reunion or the refugee and humanitarian programme.

More specifically the Coalition has raised specific concerns about the potential abuse of pending marriage visas to facilitate forced marriages.

Equality for women is a core Australian value. We must never allow this core value to be compromised, to accommodate cultural practices in other countries that will always be unacceptable in Australia. The way we run our visa programme must uphold these values.

Media Release : Latest arrival takes us back to three boats a week under Labor

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 13:00:00 GMT

The arrival of the latest illegal boat, with 44 people on board, is the third boat to arrive this week, showing that people smugglers are back to business as usual under Labor’s failed border protection policies, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Scott Morrison and Shadow Minister for Justice, Customs and Border Protection, Michael Keenan said today.

“After the Howard Government implemented their proven border protection policies just three boats were arriving a year. By contrast, under Labor's failed policies we have had three boats arrive so far this week,” Mr Morrison said.

“People smugglers are cramming more people onto dangerous boats in the lead up to the monsoon season and the government has no policy in place to offer even the slightest deterrence. The last time this many people arrived in a month was in November last year when 14 boats arrived with 733 people on board,” he said.

“Julia Gillard must put aside her political pride, bring on an immediate vote on her Migration Bill and adopt the Coalition's amendment to ensure it passes the parliament before it rises for the year.

“The Australian people do not deserve a Prime Minister who has thrown in the towel to people smugglers, because she cannot admit that Labor was wrong to abolish the Howard Government's proven measures.

“The Coalition has an amendment to the Migration Act on the table which the Prime Minister for the good of the nation should adopt immediately on the floor of the Parliament. The amendment is consistent with the position the Prime Minister took to the election that offshore processing should only occur in countries that have signed the refugee convention. The Coalition is asking the Prime Minister to agree with herself,” Mr Morrison said.

Mr Keenan said: “Given this is the third illegal boat to arrive this week, it is clear that the people smugglers are sending a strong message to Prime Minister Gillard that they support the Government’s non-action on border protection and have full confidence to continue their insidious trade.

“Intercepting the third boat in as many days, Border Protection Command are currently working at breakneck speed and are being asked to go well above the call of duty to mop up the Gillard Labor Government’s border protection mess.

“As the parliamentary sitting year draws to a close, the Labor Government has yet to announce whether they will use the last day of Parliament to debate the Migration Amendments and return an effective border protection regime to Australia.

“If they don’t then it confirms that people smugglers are the only enterprises that have no fear that the Labor Party will do anything to disrupt their business,” Mr Keenan said.

Speech : Transcript - Ray Hadley Morning Show

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 13:00:00 GMT

Speech

Transcript - Ray Hadley Morning Show

Wednesday 23rd November 2011

SUBJECTS: Arrival of second largest boat this year, immigration detention inquiry, negative security assessments rates for IMAs, pro bono work for asylum seekers

E and OE

HADLEY:
As I mentioned top of the show, a vessel carrying 116 boat people and five crew has arrived in Australian waters. The boat was picked up north-east of Christmas Island yesterday afternoon. It was detected the previous night. Somebody on board called the police, sparking an aerial search by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority. Crikey, they’re well organised. When the boat was spotted, the decision was made for HMAS Maitland to monitor the rest of the ship’s voyage to Christmas Island. So they escorted it down there. They’ve been transferred to the island for security, health and ID checks. The Shadow Immigration Minister Scott Morrison joins me on the line from our Canberra studio. Scott G’day.

MORRISON:
G’day Ray.

HADLEY:
The second largest this year, the fourth largest since Labor changed the Immigration laws in August 2008 - they get bigger by the day.

MORRISON:
Well they do. The only business that isn’t living in fear of this government is the people smugglers’ business. They are literally earning super profits now. I mean, that boat that has just turned up – that would’ve yielded people smugglers over $1 million and it is almost double the size of the boats we’ve seen coming all year so they’re cramming more people on to increase their profits and this government continues to sit in denial about their policy failures.

HADLEY:
I’m looking at the photo of the vessel that’s the new boatload, by John Faulkner in the Daily Telegraph and other News Limited publications, isn’t it concerning? It’s not some little, tiny fishing boat, that a vessel this size makes it almost to Christmas Island without being spotted in any capacity?

MORRISON:
Well it is puzzling and that’s for the government to explain. But look, had it been spotted earlier, then the same thing would’ve happened. It just would’ve been escorted here, this government doesn’t have a policy of turning boats back when it’s safe to do so. I mean they attack us for saying we would turn boats back. Our policy is we’d do it where it’s safe. They won’t do it at all.

HADLEY:
There was an inquiry into detention underway in Canberra at the moment and this is reported by Gemma Jones today in the Telegraph. Evidence given last night that there is a drain on legal aid via the boat people meaning there is not money available to other people deserving of legal aid.

MORRISON:
Well it was for pro bono work done by the legal firms and what the Law Council said last night was because of all the requests that they’ve had from asylum seekers for their support, then they’re having to cut back on the pro bono work that is done for others.

HADLEY:
Pro bono means free, basically.

MORRISON:
Yeah, free from the legal firms and I asked them – well, who’s missing out – what are the cases that aren’t getting support and they were things like credit – when people had problems with creditors and we know the sort of issues that families are struggling with at the moment with rising costs of living and sadly some people aren’t able to pay that electricity bill or they can’t pay that credit card bill and the most needy turn to this sort of pro bono support in these circumstances. So it’s just another example, Ray, of what the consequences are when all this goes wrong.

HADLEY:
What about this other information that’s published again today from this inquiry in Canberra – the number of boat people who fail security tests, as opposed to the onshore asylum seekers, those who come here legally.

MORRISON:
I thought this was extraordinary. There is a twenty times more likely chance that someone who has arrived by boat will get a negative security assessment than the thousands of others who applied for visas through the ordinary course and over the last three years, not one person who’d arrived by plane and applied for asylum got a negative assessment. Not one. Now there were 54 since January last year out of 7,000 people so the ratios there speak for themselves.

HADLEY:
So in other words the type of people attracted to this illegal entry via people smugglers suggest that we’re not getting the right sort of people in every regard.

MORRISON:
Well as we’ve spoken many times, almost 90 per cent of those who arrive by boat, Ray, have no documentation whatsoever and ASIO last night talked about the difficulty that presents for them to work out who these people are and the numbers don’t lie. I mean 1 in 130 of those who arrived by boat have been given a negative assessment. Compared to the 66,000 other assessments ASIO did, it’s 1 in about 2,750. So 20 times more likely to fall into that category. I’m not saying it’s still a large number. It’s not. But those who say those who come by plane and those who come by boat – why do we distinguish? Well that’s a pretty good reason.

HADLEY:
Well most of them – not most of them, all of them have come in the other means have, we would think, legal papers.

MORRISON:
Well they do, they’ve got a visa too so we already know who they are so there has already been some pre-clearance and that’s why it’s not surprising that those who have come by the other method wouldn’t get a negative assessment by ASIO.

HADLEY:
Ok, thanks for your time as always.

MORRISON:
Thanks a lot, Ray, good to be with you.

HADLEY:
Scott Morrison, Shadow Immigration Minister from our Canberra studio.

Ends

Media Release : People smugglers now earning super profits under Julia Gillard's border protection failures

Mon, 21 Nov 2011 13:00:00 GMT

The arrival of the latest illegal boat, with 121 people on board, means more than 6,000 people have now turned up illegally by boat since the last election, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Scott Morrison and Shadow Minister for Justice, Customs and Border Protection, Michael Keenan said today.

“As Labor clings to their border protection policy failures, people smugglers are crowding more people onto each boat, increasing the risk to increase their profits,” Mr Morrison said.

“With 116 asylum seekers on this latest boat, people smugglers could have earned up to half a million dollars more than the average sized boat arrival this year,” he said.

“This is the second largest boat in 2011 and the fourth largest since Labor abolished the proven border protection regime they inherited from John Howard.

“Before the last election Julia Gillard said she wanted to smash the people smugglers business model. What she has done since is underwrite their business model with failed policies, earning super profits for the people smugglers. In Australia their earnings would qualify for a super profits tax under Labor,” Mr Morrison said

Mr Keenan said: “This latest boat only increases the strain on the already stretched Border Protection Command who are already been pushed to breaking point by this Government’s failed policies.

“Clearly people smugglers are taking advantage of the current border protection vacuum created by Labor through their ineptitude.

“This lack of resolve sends an enormous green light to people smugglers that they can continue their trade without fear that the Australian Government will show the resolve necessary to stop them.

“It is clear that people smugglers have ample confidence in the failure of the Gillard Labor Government and are therefore continuing their trade in human misery,” Mr Morrison said.

Speech : Private Members Bill - Police Overseas Service (Territories of Papua New Guinea) Medal Bill 2011

Sun, 20 Nov 2011 13:00:00 GMT

Speech

Private Members Bill - Police Overseas Service (Territories of Papua New Guinea) Medal Bill 2011

Monday 21st November 2011

Australia has a proud history of peacekeeping. Our police forces have long played an important part in overseas operations: nurturing and empowering nations along the path to self-determination, democracy and independence. This strong legacy has its root in the service of our kiaps—the precursors, the forgotten peacekeepers. About 2,000 Australians, including at least one shire resident, served as members of the Royal PNG Constabulary between 1949 and 1973.
The name 'kiap' came from the German title 'kapitan' and crept into the local vernacular when Germany governed the Territory of New Guinea prior to World War I. In the aftermath of World War II, Australia assumed responsibility for administering the territories of Papua and New Guinea. During this time it remained an overseas territory— a British possession in Papua and a UN trust for the former German colony of New Guinea. The kiaps, or patrol officers, were the face of a colonial government. As sworn officers of Australia's police force, they performed government services prior to independence in 1975—not calling the shots down a telephone line but working alongside people on the ground in the towns and villages.
In 1970, there were about 550 kiaps in the field and all but 50 were posted to rural outstations. They lived the life in order to comprehend it. Papua New Guinea was a rural land, at times primitive, and very remote. It was split into districts and subdivided into patrol posts and base camps responsible for between 15 and 30,000 people. The kiaps did much more than simply police the frontier. It was an all-consuming task requiring total immersion in a culture that was very different from the world they knew. The kiaps were everywhere. They were an authority wholly embedded in the field. They adapted to their environment, shouldering whatever duties a situation demanded. You became what you needed to be. Tom Webster left Canberra in 1969 at age 20 to become a cadet patrol officer in Port Moresby. He was posted to the Western Highlands and within days of arriving he had supervised the extension of an airstrip, investigated a fatal fire in a school and set out on a census patrol.
A kiap was an explorer, a peacemaker, a negotiator, a policeman, a judge, a governor, a mediator and even an anthropologist, not to mention a surveyor and a construction foreman. It was no mean feat to bring stability to a land that was, at that time, largely lawless and tribal, as divided by language and clan rivalry as the wild rivers and steep mountains it possessed. It was not 'policing' in the typical sense of the word but nevertheless the kiaps succeeded. The versatility required to perform the many roles they performed should not detract from their eligibility for the Police Overseas Service Medal. Quite the opposite, it should enhance it.
The kiaps worked on foot, conducting radiating patrols throughout the countryside in close cooperation with the indigenous police and local leaders. More than 85 per cent of the population lived in rural villages. Papua New Guinea was and remains one of the most sociolinguistically diverse countries in the world. In 1970, over 700 languages were spoken amongst a population of just three million. Kiaps were often away for weeks at a time, covering vast areas of difficult and unforgiving terrain. I experienced both the privilege and the challenge of walking the Kokoda Track in 2009 with my parliamentary colleague the member for Blaxland. The landscape of Papua New Guinea is formidable. The heat is oppressive, the jungles impenetrable, the mountains sheer and the terrain rugged. Men were made in those mountains, and Australians and Papua New Guineans fought together and died together during the war. In the decades that followed, our peoples continued to work side by side to help the country achieve independence.
The kiaps first set foot in PNG as young Australians with big hearts, a little training and a thirst for adventure. They left with a sense of real pride, having played a role in accomplishing something great. In his memoirs, Michael O'Connor records his experience of becoming a kiap. In 1959, at the age of 20, he was handed responsibility for the lives of 30,000 Papua New Guineans. Having slashed their way through jungles and waded through swamps, the kiaps would inspect villages, conduct a census, collect head taxes and administer justice. Kiaps dealt with three-quarters of all cases heard in the colony by way of an open court. The officer would face the accused and the litigants before the entire village. He would listen to all parties, form a judgment and then make a resolution, taking into account the views of the village leaders. The decisions were all recorded.
Dinnen and Braithwaite observed that 'interactions between indigenous and colonial systems served to strengthen each other. Working with the kiaps brought considerable prestige to local people, while European kiaps depended on their local knowledge and language skills.' Archives of surviving patrol reports document their attempts to introduce law and order to the towns and, at the same time, to produce maps, reports and accounts of local customs and language. Their actions demonstrated a profound sense of humility and a dedication to serving the local people.
Kiaps frequently went above and beyond the call of duty; duty had no uniform shape. Tom Webster asked at his first training course if he would ever have to deliver a baby. He was firmly told 'no'. By the end of his tour of duty, Tom had delivered four. Departmental standing instructions issued to the officers described their role as to facilitate self-determination, to ensure 'the territory is reasonably well equipped, as far as natural resources permit, to survive on its own in terms of social and economic development, with a decent standard of living and civilisation. The task is one of staggering magnitude.'
One of the travesties of Australian history is that the kiaps have never formally been recognised, as I now seek to do through this bill. We often talk about views or perceptions of history, but, on occasion, cataracts develop in our national narrative that mar or obscure certain elements of our past. I bring this bill before the House to grant kiaps eligibility for the Australian Police Overseas Service Medal so that, finally, they may receive the commendation they deserve—alongside so many other fine Australian police officers who have served overseas as well. Importantly, this includes posthumous recognition. The kiaps played a crucial role in the reconstruction of a war-battered nation. Over time, disparate village units were drawn together. It was a difficult road to self-government, but the role of the kiaps in aiding that change cannot be underestimated. The work was hard, the days were long and the danger was ever present.
In his memoirs, Michael O'Connor recounts the challenges of trying to shoot a crocodile that had been troubling one village in the dark. In another breath, he describes patrolling while suffering hepatitis and dengue fever. Ross Wilkinson, from Victoria, recalls his ancillary duties, which included flying in light aircraft on search and rescue missions and using explosives for road and airstrip construction. Each kiap carried a Lee Enfield rifle for his police work, along with revolvers and shotguns. In addition to keeping the peace, kiaps were tasked with destroying unexploded ordnance from World War II.
The job was perilous on so many levels. Some were murdered on duty. East New Britain District Commissioner Jack Emmanuel was killed by disaffected landowners on the Gazelle Peninsula when he tried to intervene in a land ownership dispute. Their work involved exploring new territories and pacifying the warring tribes that dwelt there. There were arrows tipped with poison to contend with, should diplomacy deteriorate, but nature was often threat enough, with malaria, snakes and bush pigs. Some lives were claimed by illness; others were lost in boating and aircraft accidents. But all this they took in their stride.
In 1971, then Minister for External Territories Charles Barnes remarked, 'This body of men has made a most admirable contribution to the territory ... a few Australians went into that primitive and hostile country ... and, with a minimum loss of life, brought control to the country and a better life to its people. I do not think their efforts could be equalled anywhere else.'
Forty years on, we have the opportunity to offer a fitting thanks to these remarkable Australians. This bill is the culmination of much work from many, and I stand here to represent these people in bringing it forward: Chris Viner-Smith; Morrie Brown, who has joined us here today in the gallery; and Mike Douglas, a very good friend of mine from the shire who first introduced me to this incredible story and who is also supported by the Police Federation of Australia.
One of the obstacles to awarding this medal has been the status of PNG prior to independence. But, as I have said, it was clearly an 'overseas' theatre, given Australia's jurisdiction. The significance of this bill is twofold. Importantly, it recognises the contributions of those 2,000 Australians at a personal level—long overdue. But, as a nation, by acknowledging their achievement in this place, it also gives us access to what is truly one of the great Australian stories in which we should all have a sense of pride. It facilitates engagement with a chapter of our experience of nationhood that I believe has wrongly been overlooked. The qualities of the quintessential Australian spirit are as evident here as on any other page of history—including in that great land of Papua New Guinea.
Last year, to celebrate the 35th anniversary of Papua New Guinea's independence, the National Archives hosted a photographic tribute to the kiaps. Those pictures form an enduring tribute to the Australian spirit and the mettle of its people. Those black and white photographs remind us not only what we were but also who we are and who we can be. The recognition of the kiaps, both in this place and in our national history, is long overdue. But that opportunity is now here with us with the presentation of this bill. I look around the chamber and to the other place and I heartily commend this bill to the House and ask that the kiaps now be remembered and honoured for their service.

Speech : transcript - Channel Ten News debate

Sat, 19 Nov 2011 13:00:00 GMT

Speech

transcript - Channel Ten News debate

Sunday 20th November 2011

Subjects: Mining tax, conscience vote on Gay Marriage

EandOE

BELLING: And talking about politics, let’s go head to head now with our political heavy weights. Finance Minister Penny Wong joins us tonight from Adelaide and Shadow Immigration Minister Scott Morrison is in our Sydney newsroom.

DORAN: Welcome to you both.

MORRISON: G’day.

WONG: Good to be with you.

DORAN: Mr Morrison if we might start with yourself – critical mining legislation obviously to go before parliament this week. The Opposition has fought this bill long and hard but now you’ve got Resources Spokesperson Ian MacFarlane coming out and flagging possible Coalition support. Has the Opposition, I guess, overestimated the opposition to this tax?

MORRISON: No, what Mr MacFarlane said this morning is that if others seek to put up amendments to the tax this week, we’ll have a look at those but we’ve always been opposed to this tax. I mean, this government is addicted to tax. Ronald Reagan, another US President, used to say about the Democrats’ policies that if it moves, tax it, if it keeps moving, regulate it and if it stops moving, subsidise it and I think that’s a pretty good commentary on what we’ve seen from this government. I mean, the Mining Tax is a deal with the big miners, it puts a lot of penalties and cuts out a lot of the smaller miners and it’s something we’ve never supported and we won’t be supporting it in the parliament.

DORAN: Well Senator there have been some suggestions of amendments. Have you got the support you need from the independents?

WONG: Look we’re in the process of having a lot of dialogue, as you’d imagine, with the independents but can I just respond to what Scott said. Really the Coalition’s opposition to this mining tax – a tax that mining companies are prepared to pay, really means that what the Coalition is saying to the Australian people is this – we don’t want you to fully share in the benefits of the mining boom. That’s what the Coalition is saying. I mean, we are seeing very high prices for the sale of commodities such as coal and iron ore. These are things the Australian people own and what we are saying is we should ensure that instead of all of that money going into increasing the profits of mining companies, a fair share of that should come to Australians and we want to invest it for the good of the future. Superannuation, infrastructure and of course, lower taxes on small business. These are all opposed by the Opposition.

BELLING: Senator Wong if I can just move on to another issue. In today’s press, you have been quoted as comparing the ban on gay marriage with the White Australia policy but some union power brokers have labelled your move to take on the PM over her anti gay marriage stance as dumb and electoral suicide. WONG: Well first I want to say that I think it is very courageous of the Prime Minister to be clear that we are able to have this debate inside the Labor party. She has also said she wants a respectful debate and that’s how I intend to conduct this discussion. I don’t have anything further to add than what I’ve put on the public record and obliviously this is an issue we’ll have a lot to say a lot about in the context of national conference.

BELLING: But don’t you think that this just highlights this is another issue that shows clear divisions within the Labor Party?

WONG: I think this shows a party that’s willing to talk about issues the community are talking about. And a Prime Minister who’s prepared to have a respectful debate inside her party about this issue. It’s interesting I’ve also seen Coalition members who are agitating for a conscious vote, it’s not a debate that Tony Abbott wants to have. He shut that debate down. In our party, we’re going to have a respectful debate about an issue that many people feel strongly about.

BELLING: Mr Morrison?

MORRISON: Well I think what we’ve had at the last election was a commitment that we wouldn’t be changing the Marriage Act. There are many opinions on this issue. Penny and I have a different view on this issue. I respect hers and I’m sure she respects mine. But in the Liberal Party, we took a commitment to the last election. So it’s not just an opinion. It’s what we took to an election. Now the Prime Minister took a similar commitment before the last election not to support something of this nature and we can just chalk it up with the many other measures the Prime Minister has walked away from since the last election. I mean, both sides of politics have supported getting rid of the discrimination around these issues –

WONG: Oh come on. Scott -

MORRISON: Penny, as you know, in the last parliament, we supported the government’s bills around a principle which said no one should pay a cent more in tax or receive a cent less in terms of benefits and entitlements, regardless of their sexual orientation. And we supported that in the parliament and I thought that was a constructive thing to do but we had a commitment before the last election and we’ll honour it.

DORAN: Finance Minister Penny Wong and Shadow Immigration Minister Scott Morrison. Unfortunately, we’re out of time. Thank you both for you time this afternoon.

MORRISON: Thanks a lot, good to be with you.

WONG: Good to be with you. Thank you.

End

Media Release : Coalition welcomes Nauruan president's commitment to processing centre

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 13:00:00 GMT

The Coalition welcomes statements from the new President of Nauru, Sprent Dabwido, confirming his government’s policy of support for the re-opening of the Australian taxpayer funded asylum seeker processing centre in Nauru, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Scott Morrison said today.

“The Coalition is pleased that our policy of re-opening the Australian taxpayer funded processing centre on Nauru continues to enjoy bi-partisan support on Nauru,” Mr Morrison said.

“While the President of Nauru may have changed the policy remains the same, as does the phone number, reminding Prime Minister Gillard once again that she should immediately pick up the phone to Nauru,” he said.

“In my two visits to Nauru and in all conversations and meetings with Nauruan members of Parliament, the proposal has been backed unanimously and that continues under the new government.

“The Coalition will work co-operatively with the new Government as we have with their predecessors.

“The only person that stands in the way of a processing centre on Nauru is Julia Gillard. Her stubborn political pride is the only thing preventing her from adopting the Coalition’s proven solutions to stop illegal boat arrivals.

“The Coalition remains committed to our proven policies of reopening the processing centre on Nauru, along with reintroducing temporary visas and turning boats back where it is safe to do so,” Mr Morrison said.

END

* Partial Transcript - Radio Australia Pacific Beat interview with Nauruan President Sprent Dabwido 17-11-11

PRESENTER:

Marcus Stephen always said in relation to the asylum seeker processing centre they would be open to discussions. Do you feel the same way if Australia wanted to discuss that again with you?

SPRENT DABWIDO:

I have always held President Marcus Stephen as probably one of our greatest leaders and I have learned a lot from him and what his approach was to the asylum seekers in Australia is that is Australia’s internal issues and Nauru is a friend of Australia and we will always be here and if Australia needs us we are here. If they don’t need us we continue going on. So I will be following the former President’s advice on that.

Speech : Address to the 2011 Federation of Ethnic Community Councils of Australia conference

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 13:00:00 GMT

Speech

Address to the 2011 Federation of Ethnic Community Councils of Australia conference

Friday 18th November 2011

“Our Nation”

A liberal perspective on immigration and social cohesion in modern Australia

Thank you for the opportunity to address you today.
My purpose today is not to announce new policy initiatives, but to set out the heritage and broader framework for how a Liberal Government would direct immigration policy and the challenges we see ahead to foster social cohesion in modern Australia.
It is fitting that in the week we welcomed the US President, that we discuss this topic, as one of the greatest shared experiences of our two nations has been the extraordinary contribution of immigration to our national success.
Like the United States, our nation is an immigration nation; arguably the world's most successful.
A recent publication celebrating ethnic business in Australia refers to immigration as what brought luck to the lucky country.
Like the US, our subscription to the values we hold as a nation has bonded us together, regardless of our origins.
In our case these same values have underpinned the merit based; non discriminatory and orderly immigration programme that I believe has been most responsible for our success.
Not only must we therefore protect the integrity of our borders by preserving the integrity and rigour of immigration system, we must also protect the borders of our values.
Failure will disarm our capacity to maintain the social cohesion and way of life that has attracted more than 7 million immigrants to our shores[i] from over 200 counties, representing 270 ethnicities and 260 language groups since the end of the Second World War[ii].
I am confident about our future as an immigration nation.
We have overcome the barriers of diverse nationalities and ethnicities in the past to create a unified and harmonious nation with a clear sense of national identity.
Our nation has achieved strength and unity from our diversity. A diversity that has inspired our creativity, our prosperity and our sense of community.
The Liberal Party has been in the vanguard of these efforts and remains so today.
It was the Menzies Government who embraced an ambitious and positive programme of post war immigration, including from Southern Europe[iii], signed the Refugee Convention in 1954[iv] and allowed selected non-European migrants to apply for permanent residence or citizenship after fifteen years[v].
In 1960 the term ‘White Australia’ was removed from the Liberal Party’s Federal Policy Platform[vi], five years before a similar change in the ALP’s platform[vii].
In its place, the Party affirmed the ‘internationally recognised principle’ of every country “having the right to decide its own immigration policy according to its own circumstances”[viii]. This sentiment was echoed by John Howard, more than 40 years later when he declared ‘we will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come, and no one else’[ix].
In March 1966, the Holt Government abolished the White Australia policy by allowing applications for migration to be accepted from well-qualified people on the basis of their suitability as settlers, their ability to integrate readily and their possession of qualifications positively useful to Australia[x].
They also allowed non –European 'temporary residents', not required to leave Australia, to become permanent residents and citizens after five years, the same as for Europeans[xi].
The Fraser Government adopted the Galbally report recommendations[xii], which included the establishment of SBS , the extension of ethnic radio services, a major orientation program for new arrivals, the introduction of innovative English language instruction; boosts for the child migrant education program and the establishment of a network of migrant resource centres[xiii].
Opposed by Whitlam, Labor and the Unions[xiv], Fraser’s Liberal Government responded to a genuine regional refugee crisis, resettling an average of 8,630 Indo-Chinese refugees a year between 1 July 1975 and 30 June 1981 and in 1982[xv] and negotiated an agreement with Vietnam on the “Orderly Departure Program” – to reunite families of Vietnamese refugees already in Australia in an orderly, authorised way.
It is important to also note that part of the Fraser Government’s response was to aid the Indonesian government’s establishment of an offshore processing centre on the island Galang[xvi], ensuring few Vietnamese boats ever actually came to Australia. Between 1976 and 1981 less than 400 people arrived per year[xvii]. More than 400 have arrived under the current government’s policies in the past month.
In many ways Malcolm Fraser was the pioneer of the Liberal’s policy of offshore processing.
The Fraser Government also established the Immigration Review Tribunal[xviii], the Australian Refugee Advisory Council, the Community Refugee Settlement Scheme to provide social support, orientation assistance and assist in finding employment and accommodation[xix], the Determination of Refugee Status committee and introduced the Special Humanitarian Program in 1981 to enable visas for people subject to substantial discrimination with close ties to Australia[xx].
The Humanitarian Program was diversified further, with entrants arriving from South America, the Middle East and Africa.
In 1996, the Immigration program inherited by the Howard government lacked a clear economic rationale, was dominated by family reunion, was bringing in many migrants dependent on welfare support and was open to fraud[xxi]. It had lost the support of the Australian people.
Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock, our longest serving, introduced reforms to sharpen the program’s economic focus, reduce the size of the family-reunion component and restricted new migrants access to welfare.
During the Howard years skills based migration increased from less than 30% of the permanent programme[xxii] under Paul Keating to almost 70% by the time they left office[xxiii]. The Howard Government also introduced the temporary skilled visa, the 457.
Research by Monash University showed that during the Howard years the percentage of Australians who were concerned about immigration levels being too high almost halved, from more than two thirds to just over one third[xxiv]. Over the same period our permanent immigration intake doubled.
Those who came had the skills to find employment. Over the ten years to 2005/2006 unemployment for skilled migrants fell from 9% to just 3%, better than the national average[xxv]. Labour force participation rates were also higher.
Even from the family stream unemployment levels dropped from 19% to 6% and their participation rate increased from 55% to 70%[xxvi]. It is disappointing to note that unemployment for the family stream has now risen to 29% with a decline in the participation rate to 65%.
The Howard Government's policies reinforced the need for cultural diversity to be a unifying force for Australia. The four key policy principles for cultural diversity set out in two separate statements in 1999 and 2003 were civic duty, cultural respect, social equity and productive diversity. The 2003 statement spoke directly of the need to articulate a coherent set of national values, and was followed up by the introduction of the Citizenship test[xxvii].
In 2003 $100.9 million was committed over four years to improve settlement services[xxviii].
In the wake of 9/11, even greater focus was applied to addressing social cohesion to manage existing and potential tensions following the terrorist attacks. After the London bombings, the Muslim Community Reference Group was formed in 2005[xxix].
The responsibilities of citizens and residents were primary in the Howard Government's thinking. It was therefore disappointing to read in the Government's People of Australia Policy released earlier this year that responsibility no longer sits within the four guiding policy principles of the Government for Multiculturalism[xxx]. They are referred to as an after thought, not core to the Government's approach.
On our borders, the Howard Government stopped the people smugglers, preserving the integrity of our offshore refugee and humanitarian programme and earning the trust and confidence of the Australian people.
In 2007 one in 400 protection visas went to those who had arrived by boat[xxxi]. Today that figure is one in five[xxxii]. There were more than 54,000 people who applied offshore for a protection visa in Australia last year - only 8,900 were successful[xxxiii], compared to a peak of more than 12,800 under the Howard Government[xxxiv].
Under the Howard Government we resettled around 150,000 refugee and humanitarian entrants[xxxv] and were a key participant in the resettlement of Burmese refugees from the Thai Border camps.
An orderly system of migration selects migrants based on their capacity to contribute. For our humanitarian programme this selection involves a triage of the need of the individual and our judgement on who we can best assist. Our settlement services programme then seeks to build their capacity to become a successful and integrated member of our community, and make their contribution.
Support for these programmes is dependent on the Government maintaining the integrity of the process, as was achieved by the Howard Government and has been squandered by the failed policies of both Prime Minister's Rudd and Gillard, whose failure continues to this day.
So what are the challenges we now face? Let’s first be clear about what they are not.
Too often we seek to appropriate the problems of other western nations to our own experience. This is particularly dangerous when it comes to immigration.
Let me be clear, I do not see the experience of Europe on immigration as a prophecy for our own future in Australia.
While I empathise with the comments of Angela Merkel and David Cameron as they battle with these questions in a European context, their immigration practice has followed a very different path to Australia.
This point was well made in a recent article published by the Centre for Independent Studies[xxxvi]. In that paper the CIS argues that Australia's selective migration system is in stark contrast to the practices of the UK and Germany and is the driving cause for Australia's success as one the world's most culturally diverse nations.
This success is measured in the equality of outcomes, or better, experienced by Australia's migrant population and their children whether in education, unemployment, labour force participation, median full time earnings or incarceration compared to the rest of the community.
The CIS article observes 'Australia predominantly received migrants who were qualified and capable of easily integrating into society' and that Australia has been 'cherry picking' the best qualified migrants, most likely to make a positive contribution.
Germany and the United Kingdom did not follow this planned migration path and have paid the price in social dislocation.
In Germany, migration was the product of guest workers brought into the country after the Second World War to aid with reconstruction. These workers simply never went home and were followed by subsequent waves of family reunion migration from these original temporary entrants, further encouraged by access to Germany's generous welfare entitlements. Contrary to Australia's experience, migrants in Germany have twice the rate of unemployment and extremely low levels of skills and qualifications compared to the balance of the population
In the UK, post war immigration was the product of the Nationality Act of 1948 which gave a right of residence to citizens of all places around the world that were still British colonies in 1949. By 1961 the number of foreign born UK residents increased to 2.5 million and now stands at over 7 million.
The level of social dislocation in the UK is now obvious to all, the most serious example being the rise in home grown terrorism from isolated ethnic and religious communities, disengaged from an ever more difficult to distinguish cultural mainstream, ambiguous national values and the decline of the English language in its birthplace.
Our response must address the challenges in our nation.
While not discounting the contribution of policies to increase community acceptance, understanding and support for migrants, our real success is a function of the fact that we have deliberately chosen migrants who are more likely to be successful.
A study cited by the CIS and published by the American Sociological Review into the effects of policies regulating immigration in Australia and New Zealand found ‘the relatively high educational and occupational status of immigrant’s parents … fully explains the better educational performance of immigrant children'[xxxvii]. The research went on to say 'our analyses do not support the hypothesis that the better performance of immigrant children in traditional immigration countries can be explained by a more receptive attitude toward immigrants in these countries'.
The CIS concluded by saying 'if Australia wants to continue the process of attracting migrants into the future, it should not deviate from its policy of selecting migrants by their suitability. Migrants can only add value to recipient countries if they fit in and make an effort to integrate. Immigration nations ignore this basic insight at their peril'.
Recently, there has been discussion once again about the introduction of a Multicultural Act in Australia. We should not allow legislative symbolism to distract us from the real reasons for our success as an immigration nation and where we must be most vigilant.
Other countries have gone down this path, such as Canada, who introduced their Multiculturalism Act in 1988, yet Canada has not produced better outcomes than Australia.
Like Australia, the US has no such act, yet the US is a successful immigrant nation.
Of course we should have policies that promote acceptance, reject discrimination, provide support and recognize our diverse backgrounds. These factors must never be allowed to become a barrier to participation in the Australian community.
Australia has had such policies for many years without a Multicultural Act, and the Liberal Party has played a central role in the establishment of such policies. We will continue to support these policies. We will continue to deal with discrimination and disadvantage through the laws we make for all Australians. For this reason we do not consider it necessary to establish any specific law to deal with these issues, as proposed in the form of a Multicultural Act.
The lesson of our immigration success is that we must continue to run merits based programme, driven unapologetically by our national interest. Immigration is not a welfare programme; it is a nation building programme that seeks to add to our national wellbeing through our most important asset -our people. We must select those most able to make a contribution.
So what challenges will we face?
Our position on addressing the Government’s border protection failures is well known and I will not rehearse them again here today.
I have also spoken often about our need to deal with the anticipated growth in temporary migration.
Our immigration and settlement programmes have been built for permanent settlement. Yet temporary migration is now the dominant component of net overseas migration to Australia every year.
We learnt many years ago that capital was mobile and adjusted our system of financial regulation and policy frameworks to accommodate and take advantage of this change, while protecting Australia's interests.
Today, people are mobile, and for employment in particular. We must come to terms with what temporary migration means for Australia, how it can serve our interests and what we must do to protect our interests.
We already know the economic benefits that have been derived from international visitors and students. We must now understand how utilizing temporary labour visas can grow our economy and create jobs for Australians, rather than myopically seeing it as a threat – currently 457 visa holders accounts for less than 1% of our labour force[xxxviii].

Temporary migration enables us to provide greater conditionality on a person's stay. Unlike permanent migrants, we can and should constrict the terms of their entry to work in particular locations and occupations to address labour shortages. This can bring targeted benefits to regional areas, where such labour is needed, and protect against such labour gravitating to other areas, where it could threaten Australian jobs.
We must be careful to manage the population impacts of such temporary migration, ensuring that we apply appropriate constraints, most importantly that such entrants return home when their purpose and stay has been completed – whether it is to work, study or visit – without onward application entitlements.
Where increases in temporary migration are balanced by departing temporary migrants, the population impact is mitigated.
Finally we must find ways to provide temporary migrants with access to settlement support. These migrant groups are presently highly vulnerable in our community and receive little to assist them adjust to and participate in Australian life. This is essential to ensuring greater social cohesion and integration within our community, if more temporary migrants are to be part of our community.
A further challenge is what I would describe as a shift in the fault line on social cohesion. This was once defined by race, nationality and ethnicity. We have overcome these challenges. A new fault line is emerging on religion.
The challenge here is more significant than cultural practices and identity, as we a dealing with the borderless, non racial, ethnically non specific and non language dependent realm of personal beliefs, values and world view.
Having said this I remain confident that we will meet and overcome this challenge in the same way as we have met those that have unsuccessfully threatened to divide our nation in the past - by remaining true to the values, systems and institutions that have served our nation well - which include freedom of religion.
Like most liberal democracies, while our constitution is rightly secular in construction, it also embraces religion and by definition the positive role of faith in our community. Those who celebrate the secular state should not make the error that secularism or secular humanism has somehow been established as our national religion by default - some type of new secularist theocracy.
Our constitution celebrates religion by providing for its freedom in the hearts, minds, lives and free speech of its citizens
Our only constraint on religion is that, in its practice, we respect the rule of law, the institutions that uphold our laws and the values that we live by and aspire to as a nation.
In our nation there is only one law. Our law cannot be partitioned in sectarian terms, or any other religious divide. I believe this is the overwhelming view of every parliament in the country and why calls for legal pluralism must be rejected, and certainly would be rejected by a Liberal Government.
Outside the formal sphere of the law, it is our values as a nation that should guide our behaviour.
As an example, I am opposed to the banning of any form of religious dress. Common sense, not the rule of law, should be our guide. We have the right to wear whatever we want, that doesn't mean we always should, if we believe it will cause discomfort or disrespect to other citizens. Equally, religious dress should not be afforded any special status or exemption under the Law, especially for identity or security purposes.
The same is true for finance. I would no sooner seek to legislate for sharia finance than I would for the levitical prohibition of usury, to enforce the year of jubilee or the teaching of my own church on tithing.
My point is that freedom of religion does not exist in a vacuum. All freedoms have limits, including in democracies.
I am not aware of any progressive mainstream religion that does not genuinely or reasonably accommodate the values we hold as a nation. They are totally accessible to all our citizens, regardless of their faith.
In my experience religion should not be an excuse for separation. Rather it is a motive for participation and inclusion. People of faith are committed to the welfare of others; believe in the dignity of the individual, the strength of the family and the importance of community.
These synergies are even more common amongst Abrahamic faiths.
We need to focus more on these commonalities and the values bridges between these faiths, rather than the differences. We need to support those who are trying to break down these barriers, such as the Together for Humanity initiative, and deny ground in their communities from separatist views.
Our future does not have to be the division, fear and chaos we see in Europe as we address the challenges that religious differences in our community can represent.
There is a better way, and it does not involve either shutting the door or diluting our values.
For the past 60 years, if not since settlement, we have found this better way. We must not now walk away from this path in the face of new challenges.
A positive merit based immigration programme, focused on skills and English as the national language, where we embrace the notion of accessible and enduring national values is the answer - not legal symbolism.
In our nation, we must never compromise our values, by agreeing with those who suggest that even their definition is an instrument of exclusion. We must protect the borders of our values.
In our nation we celebrate the values that have defined us as a nation and lived and added to by each new generation and each new wave of arrivals, making their own contribution.
In our nation we must uphold freedom of religion, speech and thought, while ensuring our laws are never altered to provide special concessions for any one group by virtue of their religion, race, ethnicity, language or birthplace.
In our nation we must ensure that English remains our one and only language and encourage its adoption in all corners of our community, by all ages, ethnicities and nationalities.
In our nation our first loyalty is always to Australia. We acknowledge, honour and respect our diverse heritage, but we prize above all what unites us as Australians, not what divides.
In our nation, we respect each other and encourage the participation of all Australians to be their best so as a nation we can excel, bringing benefits that all can share.
In our nation we understand the mutual obligation that rights only come with responsibility. We decide the future of our country by taking responsibility for our own decisions and our own actions. We expect the most from ourselves to fulfil our responsibility to preserve the way of life that brought us here and keeps us here. Our only expectation is that others will do the same.
We are a remarkable country and it didn't happen by accident or without sacrifice.
As Australians we all share equally in the legacy of what we have inherited, whether by birth or pledge.
Our values as a nation have been forged in adversity, celebrated in success and enshrined in our institutions that continue to serve us to this day. Our immigration programme is one such precious institution.
In our nation, we must never marginalise or compromise our system of merit based immigration. We must protect it's integrity and sovereignty in all facets. This is what secures the trust of our fellow Australians.
As a Liberal Minister for Immigration, I would see it as my most important responsibility to restore and maintain this trust to ensure immigration can continue to deliver what it always has for our nation - strength, prosperity and unity in the national interest.

Ends

_____________________________________________

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Speech : Transcript - 4BC Drive program

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 13:00:00 GMT

Speech

Transcript - 4BC Drive program

Tuesday 15th November 2011

Subject: 100th illegal boat arrival since the last election

EandOE

GARY HARDGRAVE:

Australia can’t make more than 47 in the last test in South Africa but Julia Gillard has hit the century. Scott Morrison the Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship joins us. 100 boats since the election that is some quite of an achievement.

MORRISON:

Well it is Gary. It is 100 not out but I am sure there are many of Australians who would like this government to be right out.

HARDGRAVE:

But using the cricket terminology, do you feel like the bowler that has been bowling up the balls and the batsman has hit 100 or the batsman who has hit the 100? This whole thing is a serious issue but it is amazing.

MORRISON:

I feel like the person, as the Opposition is, you are in the stands wishing you could be out there making the changes and the difference and you are unable to do that. We know we have the plans and the policies that can work and the government continually refuses to adopt them. It is just very frustrating and I think that is how Australians feel about this as well. The government is just completely obstinate. They are sticking to a failed game plan. As you know John Alexander, a colleague, former great tennis players said ‘you know when you have got a losing game you change it..’

HARDGRAVE:

Well it is a good analogy.

MORRISON:

‘And you never change a winning game’. We had a winning game when it came to dealing with this issue decisively and the government changed that when they came into power in 2007 and we are still reaping the horrible consequences of that.

HARDGRAVE:

But this is a big ton Scott Morrison. 93 passengers on board this, 2 crew. That is one of the biggest boats we have had.

MORRISON:

It is, it is the fifth biggest this year. Particularly this month there are about 70 people on average on each of these boats which is up 20 people on last year when there was an average of about 50. A lot of numbers I know but when you consider that it is $10,000 a person, that is $200,000 extra a boat that is coming through on average this month and that is a big boom for people smugglers. The ones that are actually hitting the home run here are the people smugglers.

HARDGRAVE:

Yeah they are probably doing pretty well. And I guess with the wet season approaching and the tropical north likely to close off we are going to see more boats not less boats between now and Christmas.

MORRISON:

Well I think that is what we are seeing. The government is desperately trying to say it is all because they couldn’t get the support of the Parliament for its Malaysian solution. But we have seen over the last two years where boats have come under this government that they have increased sharply in November and December and I think that is what we are seeing.

HARDGRAVE:

It was happening 15 years ago, the same thing was happening 15 years ago. I remember it very well.

MORRISON:

I am sure you do. I think that is playing into what we are seeing here. But as long as you have policies where boats come well more of them are going to come at this time of year and what is really concerning this year is that they are putting more people on to each of these boats which increases the risk obviously to those getting on board. These boats should not be taking more than a dozen people but have 70, 80, 90 people on them.

HARDGRAVE:

Yeah pretty frightening stuff. As you say they wouldn’t be trying unless it was so easy once you got here to be accepted.

MORRISON:

Well that is right. This government is the people smugglers’ business model and they have been ever since they abolished the measures that we all know worked. People can have whatever opinion they like on these measures but one thing that cannot be disputed is that they actually did work and we just would like them to put them back and get on with the job.

HARDGRAVE:

Good to talk to you Scott.

MORRISON:

Cheers mate.

END

Media Release : 100th boat arrival since election is business as usual under Labor

Sun, 13 Nov 2011 13:00:00 GMT

undefinedundefinedundefinedThe arrival of the latest illegal boat, with 95 people on board, is the 100th boat to arrive since the last election, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Scott Morrison said today.

“The arrival of this latest boat is further proof of the government’s border protection failures and impotence on this issue. At 95 passengers, it is the fifth largest boat to arrive this year,” Mr Morrison said.

“As the monsoon season approaches, smugglers will seek to put more people on boats, just as they did last year and the year before under this government’s failed policies,” he said.

“As long as this government continues to cling to policy failure, the boats will continue to come. The government is also expected to be airlifting detainees to the mainland this week with many more detainees expected to be released into the community under the government’s new softer policies.

“Minister Bowen has yet to be up front with the Australian people on the cost of the government’s new Greens solution for illegal boat arrivals.

“Labor’s adoption of the Greens’ policies of community release of illegal boat arrivals on bridging visas will come at a price. This government has a history of fuzzy maths on the budget for asylum seekers. Taxpayers should be very wary of their silence on this issue.

“This government which had lost its way under Kevin Rudd has now thrown out the compass. Even more people have arrived illegally by boat on Julia Gillard's watch than Kevin Rudd’s.

“Julia Gillard should admit that her proposals have proved even more damaging than Kevin Rudd's failures and restore the proven solutions of the Coalition to stop illegal boat arrivals,” Mr Morrison said.

Speech : Trasncript - Channel Nine Today program

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 13:00:00 GMT

Speech

Trasncript - Channel Nine Today program

Friday 11th November 2011

Subjects: US Marine base flagged for Darwin, European debt crisis, Tony Abbott, Remembrance Day

EandOE

KARL STEFANOVIC:

It has been a big week but let’s start with the news this morning of a US Marine base in Darwin, apparently in response to the rise of China. That is what the rhetoric is in the Sydney Morning Herald this morning. Does that send a strange message to Beijing?

MORRISON:

Well I think what is important is how we respond to this issue when the details are clearer and the President is out here shortly. But China is a customer of Australia, I think that is often the best way to look at China, it’s what Ryan Stokes said recently and we look positively towards our north, we also have a very firm relationship with the United States, our oldest and strongest and favoured alliance and all of these issues are the ones we have to address as a nation. I don’t think it is in anyway some sort of provocative step, it is just a function of the alliances we have, part of the world in which we live in but our relationship with China I think will always be strong and one of the key reasons for that is there is much to be gained on both sides of that relationship.

STEFANOVIC:

Much to be gained economically. We know that Europe has descended again. It looks very dodgy on the markets across Europe and there is very strong indications that Europe may slip into recession again. Things do look bad.

MORRISON:

Look these are very troubling times and that’s why we cannot understand why the government would be so jubilant about putting a carbon tax on our economy, the world’s biggest, when the Prime Minister herself has declared now that the rest of the world won’t be catching up anytime soon. This is just economic madness from the government. We are favoured in this part of the world in the way we are positioned and were favoured going into the GFC by what this government inherited from the Coalition but those advantages the government had will not enable us I think to deal with what they have done to our economy through the carbon tax.

STEFANOVIC:

Alright. Tony Abbott he has been in Europe, he has had a close look at it. He is on his way home from there in fact. Let’s talk about him for a just a second. Press gallery veteran, Nine political editor Laurie Oakes wrote a scathing piece in the Saturday Telegraph last week. Did you see it?

MORRISON:

Yes.

STEFANOVIC:

So he said, quote, among other things ‘Politicians don't come any more ferocious and brutal than Abbott…His style is pure attack dog, as feral as you'd get.’ Strong words.

MORRISON:

Well this is the worst government I think we have ever seen. Last time we had a government as bad as this Malcolm Fraser I think was described in very similar terms. I do not think we have gone quite to the lengths that Malcolm Fraser had but when there’s a bad government Karl and they are putting up policy after policy that has either failed or not proven, with terrible consequences, I am not quite sure what position the media or others would expect us to take. When Labor rolls out their policies and asks us for support it is a bit like choose your poison. That poison is what is inflicted on the Australian taxpayer, on the Australian public. So when the government puts up bad policies, failed policies, the carbon tax, their border protection failures, hikes in other taxes, well they can expect us not to support them. They are bad policies and that is why they’re such a bad government.

STEFANOVIC:

They are all through. Laurie went on to say – ‘the risk for the Opposition Leader is that those he would deprive of benefits might eventually see that for the nonsense it is.’ Do you believe that is true?

MORRISON:

Well as we have said, I don’t know how many times on the carbon tax, you don’t need compensation for something that isn’t going to impact you. We are going to get rid of the carbon tax and as a result those remedies will not be necessary because it is the carbon tax that is the thing that will be doing the damage and that is what we will remove. I know the government has been blustering around about how impossible that is well that will be a matter for the government if they lose government. When we lost government in 2007 we accepted their mandate over Work Choices and as we know that policy is dead and buried. If the government wants to keep fighting for a carbon tax the Australian people reject, if they are in Opposition, that is a matter for them. That is down the track. What the Australian people know is we don’t support a carbon tax, we are not going to support a carbon tax and we will repeal it if we win government.

STEFANOVIC:

Alright. Laurie also went on to say - ‘Everything, irrespective of merit, has to be opposed and torn to pieces.’ You would know he has been nicknamed ‘Dr No’ in the wake of the carbon tax debate. Isn’t the greater problem here that Tony Abbott is continuingly seen as being negative? Of rescinding more than he is actually putting forward?

MORRISON:

Well I think this is the point the government has been making and that is the line the government has been trying to run on Tony Abbott…

STEFANOVIC:

Isn’t it a fair point?

MORRISON:

Well I don’t think it is because what have we opposed? We have opposed the carbon tax, we have opposed a Malaysia Solution which between its announcement and when it was struck down by the High Court, more than 900 people turned up for a quota of 800. Everything this government has touched has turned to mush.

STEFANOVIC:

Scott with respect what haven’t you opposed?

MORRISON:

Well just last week in the Parliament in my own area we had a people smuggling bill go through the Parliament. The government approached us to deal with it urgently. We agreed with them. It passed through the House and the Senate. These are the things people don’t hear about. They are the practical things that happen in the Parliament all the time. The plain paper packaging that has just gone through the Senate is something we also ended up supporting so I don’t think it is true for that narrative to be taken. We took hundreds of policies to the last election…

STEFANOVIC:

You opposed that for a very long time though.

MORRISON:

No we didn’t declare a position for a very long time and then we declared a position and it was to support it and that is as we evaluated the merits of the position over some period of time. It is for an Opposition to scrutinise the government, Oppositions are there to hold governments to account and that is what I think we have done effectively. That may make people uncomfortable on occasions but this is a very bad government and we don’t think it should serve a day more than it has to.

STEFANOVIC:

Just finally on the business of Remembrance Day. I think it is right that we do acknowledge that and our thoughts are with the soldiers currently serving overseas.

MORRISON:

Absolutely.

STEFANOVIC:

In particular those in Afghanistan. It has been big news this week and opinion is greatly divided on this and I have debated with many others on the merit of actually debating it when you consider that our soldiers are on the front line every day putting their lives at risk but is there an appetite do you think that we are fast approaching bringing our troops back under certain guidelines and under a certain timeframe? After all we are not the ones who are sleeping with the enemy.

MORRISON:

I think that is true and in my own electorate we have lost a soldier as well in Afghanistan. I think the Parliament and I am sure the government as well, would be reflecting soberly on every single time we lose a soldier. These decisions are never taken easily and never taken softly. The situation I think is constantly monitored but the thing our troops know, particularly on a day like this, is there is an Australia wide resolve to support them and particularly today, to have them in our thoughts.

STEFANOVIC:

Scott always good to talk to you and good to spar with you too. Thank you.

MORRISON:

Thanks a lot Karl. Good to be with you mate.

END

Media Release : Gillard takes border protection from bad to worse as 99th boat arrives since election

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 13:00:00 GMT

The arrival of the latest illegal boat, carrying 57 people, brings to 99 the number of boats that have arrived since the last election, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Scott Morrison said today.

“With 99 boats having arrived since the last election and more people now having arrived by boat under Julia Gillard's leadership than Kevin Rudd’s, the Prime Minister really has taken this situation from bad to worse,” Mr Morrison said.

“Under Julia Gillard 113 illegal boats have arrived carrying 6,558 people, compared to 6,552 under Kevin Rudd,” he said.

“When she became Prime Minister, Julia Gillard said Labor had lost their way on border protection under Kevin Rudd. Since then we have seen a series of ill thought through and bungled initiatives including the East Timor processing centre and the 5 for 1 Malaysian people swap.

“By the time the High Court struck down the Government's proposal to send 800 asylum seekers to Malaysia, more than 900 people had already arrived since it was first announced.

“Now that even more people have arrived illegally by boat on Julia Gillard's watch than Kevin Rudd’s in less time and on fewer actual boats, she should admit that her proposals have proved even more damaging than Kevin Rudd's failures.

“As long as Julia Gillard continues to cling to failed policies such as her 5 for 1 Malaysian people swap and refuses to admit Labor was wrong to abolish the Howard Government's proven border protection regime, the boats will continue to arrive,” Mr Morrison said.

Media Release : Latest asylum budget blowouts are an insult to Australian families

Sun, 06 Nov 2011 13:00:00 GMT

Revelations that unaccompanied minors who arrive by boat are being given up to $2,000 for excursions, music lessons and sports fees, while the phone and internet bill for detainees on Christmas Island eclipsed $1.3 million last year, are a further slap in the face for taxpayers forced to pay for Labor's border protection failures, especially families dealing with rising costs of living, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Scott Morrison said today.

“While families are doing it tough and will do even tougher under Labor’s carbon tax, Labor is spending up to $2,000 of taxpayer’s money a year on excursions, music lessons and sports club fees for each accompanied minor in community detention,” Mr Morrison said.

“This government needs to get their priorities right. These types of expenses test the patience of Australians with a Government that simply doesn't understand the financial pressures they are facing and the decisions they are being forced to make around the kitchen table,” he said.

“Rising costs of living mean Australian families are making hard decisions every day about what they can and cannot afford. School excursions, music lessons and sports club fees for the kids are too often the things they’ll have to go without.

“While Labor are giving Australian families the world’s biggest carbon tax that will add further pressure to family budgets, they are providing asylum seekers up to $2,000 for every child to take part in activities that many Australian families will not be able to afford this year.

“Sadly, spending more than $1 million on phones and internet at just one detention centre has become commonplace under Labor’s failed border protection policies. What many Australians will not know are the allowances being provided to detainees released into the community, who so far have not been found to be refugees.

“Despite these latest budget blow outs the Government still hasn’t detailed how much their new 'everybody out' policy will cost on asylum seekers as they crab walk away from mandatory detention. Last week the Treasurer refused to answer questions on the likely cost of their new 'Greens solution' of allowing everyone out into the community and the cost of continuing onshore processing, that has been Labor's policy for the past three and half years.

“The Government couldn’t even say how much its budget for management of illegal boat arrivals will blow out by this financial year. They only budgeted for 750 people to arrive but almost double that have turned up already.

“Taxpayers have been asked to spend billions to pay for the Government’s failed border protection policies. This will only get worse because Labor’s political pride stands in the way of a proven solution to stop the boats,” Mr Morrison said.

Speech : Transcript - MTR Drive program

Sun, 06 Nov 2011 13:00:00 GMT

Speech

Transcript - MTR Drive program

Monday 7th November 2011

Subjects: more blow outs on illegal boat arrival spending, Labor’s failed border protection policies, ACV Triton allegations

EandOE

Luke Grant:

Revelations of that unaccompanied minors that arrive by boat are being given up to $2,000 for excursions, music lessons and sports fees, while the phone and internet bill for detainees on Christmas Island eclipsed $1.3 million last year - a further slap in the face for taxpayers forced to pay for Labor’s border protection failures - they’re the words of the Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Scott Morrison, who joins us on the line. G’day Scott.

Scott Morrison:

G’day Luke how are you?

Grant:

Well mate, good to talk to you again. These numbers are quite extraordinary. So we’ve got $2,000 for excursions, music lessons and sports fees - meanwhile Australian families who are doing it tough can make their own arrangements.

Morrison:

Well that’s right. No one wants to have these detention centres and community facilities run like prisons, but the government’s got to get a sense of perspective, particularly at times like this. Australians are getting from the Labor Government the world’s biggest Carbon Tax and at the same time $2,000 is being paid out for things like music lessons and sports club fees. When times are tough, I know, these are the things that as a family you sit around and talk about and sometimes sadly they’re the things that are first to go. You know, you can’t afford the swimming lessons this year or the ballet or whatever is happens to be. I just think the Government has to be sensitive to this sort of thing when they have these sorts of arrangements in place.

Grant:

You’re right Scott it’s typical. It’s that whole thing of Australians feeling like they’ve been left behind by a Government who has forgotten what’s important to us. $1 million on phones and internet on just one detention centre. How the hell do you raise that sort of money for that sort of activity?

Morrison:

When you have so many people in the centre and that’s what happens when you have so many boats arrive. Yesterday we had the 50th boat to arrive this year. They continue to come and they’re going to keep coming as long as the government is in denial. We had the Acting Prime Minister last week, Wayne Swan, say that he didn’t think that the Howard Government measures worked. If they can’t recognise success when it’s staring them right in the face how can they hope to be trusted to implement policies that will work in the future? They just don’t get it.

Grant:

It’s crazy. Just remind listeners of how many people were in detention when the Howard Government left office.

Morrison:

Four.

Grant:

Four?

Morrison:

Four who had arrived by boat. Just four. And that’s why it didn’t cost very much. When you have your borders under control the detention network is not that expensive and you don’t have all the horrible stories that occur in detention as well. When people are there for a long time and the things that they do. So all of this is avoided if you have the right border protection policy. I was really disappointed when I asked Wayne Swan a simple question in Parliament last week: will you now admit that the decision to abolish the Howard Government’s regime was a mistake? And he said ‘no it didn’t work’. So I don’t know what to say when they come out with that sort of rubbish.

Grant:

Well Scott how the hell can they call for the Coalition to support Malaysia and to have a look at some sort of bipartisan going forward, when at every opportunity all they do is stick the boot into the successful policies in a whole range of areas from the Howard Government era? It’s just ridiculous.

Morrison:

You can’t help someone who doesn’t think they have a problem. This government have never thought they’ve had a problem here, but they recognise when they’ve got a political problem I’ve noticed. We’ve been talking about this during popular and unpopular times for years and I remember several years ago that there were few places that wanted to talk about it. MTR is one of them, as was 2GB in Sydney. I think people have woken up to what’s gone on under this Government and it’s important that they now embrace. The Malaysian Solution - between the time they announced it for 800 people and the time the High Court abolished it, more than 900 people had shown up. So if they want to argue that was working, those numbers say the reverse.

Grant:

They certainly do. What’s your take on these more than two hundred 17 year olds from the Middle East or South East Asia that are here for potentially marriage visas with people up to three times their age? Pretty ugly stuff?

Morrison:

That’s the best way to describe it. I was pretty appalled when I saw that. Whether this is true or not - I saw the report and what I’ve asked Chris Bowen to do is between now and when Parliament resumes, I’ve asked him to have a good look at this in his own department and explain to us what’s going on. The family reunion program, the spouse program, we all support. It’s a good program but it has to have integrity. And if that integrity is being shown up then people lose confidence in the program more broadly. I don’t want to see that happen. So I’ve given him two weeks. He’s got his own work to do and he should come into Parliament and explain this story and give an answer.

Grant:

Finally before I let you go, this boat story that I know you spoke to Ray Hadley about this morning. The Australian Customs vessel where apparently all the bathrooms are clogged up, and they’ve been told to go slow back to Christmas Island. Any update there?

Morrison:

Well none that I have. I’ve been out of action for the last couple of hours so I haven’t heard Brendan O’Connor coming out and explaining but he really should have done that today. I know Michael Keenan has called on him to do that, he’s the Shadow Border Protection Minister who directly shadows Brendan O’Connor. A claim like that, that they’ve been ordered to go slow for a vessel that shouldn’t be having that many people on it and I understand it’s getting pretty uncomfortable, to put it mildly, on that vessel. If they were told to go slow then Brendan O’Connor should explain why. Or if that’s not true, he should say so. But the government is very slow to qualify these things. You can only assume that they don’t want people to know the truth.

Grant:

Exactly. Always good of you to give us some time Scott. Thank you.

Morrison:

Not a problem. Thank you.

END

Speech : Transcript - 6PR Howard Sattler

Sun, 06 Nov 2011 13:00:00 GMT

Speech

Transcript - 6PR Howard Sattler

Monday 7th November 2011

Subjects: integrity of prospective marriage visa program, more blowouts on illegal boat arrival spending

EandOE

HOWARD SATTLER: The Minister for Immigration Chris Bowen, we sought him again today but guess what? He is where he always is when we want to talk with him – he is in transit. The Department of Immigration said ‘no, we have got no one to talk to you about that’. Great. Scott Morrison joins us again, the Opposition Spokesman on Immigration matters. Hello Scott.
MORRISON: G’day Howard.

SATTLER: You are like the Minister to us anyway these days. He must be spending a lot of money on petrol or planes, is he?

MORRISON: Well maybe as much as they are spending on those planes in relation to detention centres. Maybe that is where all the costs are. I don’t know but on this one I have said today Howard, the alarm bells should be ringing on this and I am disappointed that not even the Department wanted to respond because a story like that should really call people into account. If I was the Minster today I would be looking for an investigation, I would be looking for that audit that Dr [Joe] Tucci referred to and I would want to be satisfied about what was going on under this program.

SATTLER: Look some of them might be legitimate but you would need to check it wouldn’t you? Given that one case, that alarming case there.

MORRISON: On the surface and I saw that same story this morning and I was just appalled. I would want to know what is going on so what I said is the Minister has two weeks. He has two weeks to go and investigate this. He should come into the Parliament and give a Ministerial statement. That is what these things are for in the Parliament.

SATTLER: Maybe he will be in transit for two weeks.

MORRISON: He has got to front up to Parliament. I haven’t made any allegations that this has been mismanaged or anything like that. I just think the questions raised there today and what Dr Tucci was just talking about, deserves answers. They should be investigated, there should be an audit because if people are going to have confidence in our immigration program things like this have to get addressed otherwise people lose confidence in the whole thing and that is not what we want. We need to have integrity and this…

SATTLER: It is scary I reckon.

MORRISON: It was put to me today Howard ‘ah well maybe they are doing it for cultural reasons’. Well we run a non-discriminatory immigration program and that means there is no positive discrimination either in favour of any cultural practice. There should be no exceptions for that on any grounds and if I heard there was anything like that going on in the Department I would be after them.

SATTLER: Well on another matter but also to do with minors. Get this - children who are unaccompanied who arrive by boat are given up to $2,000 for excursions, music lessons and sports fees. Tell us more.

MORRISON: Well Australian families are getting a carbon tax to help with cost of living and that is what is happening in our detention network. As we know Australian families are doing it tougher and when you are sitting around the kitchen table looking at what you have to cut it is often the swimming lessons or new football boots or music lessons and things like that. Well if you are an unaccompanied minor you have up to $2,000 from the government to pay for those things. I think people should get some level of support but the government should be sensitive to how the rest of the community are dealing with their own situation at the moment. I just think that is a bit of a slap in the face.

SATTLER: Is this part of the United Nations agreement we signed up to in 1951?

MORRISON: There is nothing in the UN Convention that gives someone a right to music lessons and excursions. It is there to provide some safe haven and while of course we have to look after young people in our care we also have to be mindful of the comparative that is being faced by Australian families. That one just really jarred me quite strongly. It is information that we got out of the government once again in Senate Estimates questions on notice which Senator Cash from WA has been very effective in pursuing and you just shake your head. These guys have just lost touch.

SATTLER: Ok what about the phone and internet bills for detainees on Christmas Island? What has that got to?

MORRISON: Well $1.3 million last year they spent on the phone and internet up there and that is what happens when you have that many people come through. These costs are, sadly, not that surprising any more, you and I have spoken about them many times.

SATTLER: But why are we required to provide these things?

MORRISON: There is a requirement to allow them to get in touch with their family and things of that nature but…

SATTLER: But gee they must be ringing every day.

MORRISON: It is a lot of money and that is what happens when you have that many people in detention. When there were only four people in detention who had arrived by boat when we left office, Howard, the bill wasn’t very big.

SATTLER: No. Four people? That is what it was?

MORRISON: They could have all been in a phone box.

SATTLER: Alright thanks again Scott.

MORRISON: Thanks Howard.

END

Speech : Transcript – Ray Hadley program

Sun, 06 Nov 2011 13:00:00 GMT

Speech

Transcript – Ray Hadley program

Monday 7th November 2011

Subjects: 50th illegal boat arrival this year, spending on illegal boat arrivals, integrity of prospective marriage visas

EandOE

HADLEY:

In the studio with me now - the Shadow Immigration spokesman for the Opposition in Federal Parliament, Scott Morrison.

MORRISON:

G’day Ray.

HADLEY:

How are you Scott?

MORRISON:

Very well.

HADLEY:

Couple of things to deal with. When last we spoke – no, second last time we spoke, back in October, I’d said that if we get about 8 boats by about November 15-16, the Prime Minister’s in strife. The eighth boat was greeted yesterday since she failed to raise the legislation in Parliament and it would’ve been nine, if not for the tragic circumstances off Indonesia. So eight, another 56 and four crew and it’s going to keep on happening.

MORRISON:

Well that’s right.

HADLEY:

One a week, two a week for sure.

MORRISON:

Well we’ve had 50 boats now this year and one of the things that has alarmed me as well is they’re putting more on these boats now. There’s over 60 people on average on these boats this year, that’s up 20% on last year. That means people smugglers are walking away with up to $100,000 extra every boat that comes. So in the year that they were supposed to have the people smuggler son the run, they’re making more money on every boat than ever before.

HADLEY:

And this comes as this Federal government tell us they’ve conducted more than 6,000 interviews in Pakistan and Afghanistan in order to profile potential boat people and find out how they obtain information. Despite spending all that money, it appears not to be working. Discouraging people is not working. They’re still flying to Malaysia, Indonesia, then flowing here.

MORRISON:

There’s more coming through, the boats continue to arrive and they’ll keep coming and particularly they’ll increase going into the Monsoon season as we’ve seen in the last two years under this government. When there are policies that allow boats to come, those boats always increase in the run up to the end of the year.

HADLEY:

You’ve got some figures relating to the amount spent by the Department of Immigration on phone calls and internet for detainees on Christmas Island.

MORRISON:

Yeah.

HADLEY:

$555,000 spent on the net from July 2010 to May 31 this year, with $812,000 for phone calls in the last financial year.

MORRISON:

That’s right.

HADLEY:

$555,000 on the net.

MORRISON:

That’s right, that’s right and those figures are - you know, we’ve seen those before and they’re just part of the costs of when you get your border protection wrong. It was amazing last week in the Parliament, we put it to Wayne Swan – will you now admit that when you abolished the Howard Government’s regime three years ago that you got it wrong? And his answer was that the Howard protections didn’t work. Now if you can’t identify success when you see it, how on earth can you put in place policies that you think will be successful in the future? The Malaysia deal is just one big dud and as along as they cling to that failure, then we’re going to continue to see this happen.

HADLEY:

I think the deputy Prime Minster and the Ministers responsible singing from the same Hawker-Britton hymn sheet are of the opinion that if they trot the mantra out often enough, either they’ll believe it or the people listening will believe it when in fact 1,637 asylum seekers processed under the former government’s Pacific Solution, 43 per cent or 705 ended up in Australia as refugees, 30 percent returned home and the 27 percent remaining were resettled in nations like New Zealand, some nations in Europe and Canada. I mean, I don’t know - they keep and Chris Bowen’s as guilty as the Prime Minister- no one seems to be like the Senate was on Friday, some sort of inquisitor when they say untruths, about pulling them up on it.

MORRISON:

That’s right. I mean, I’ll give you another set of figures, I mean we’ve had 1 in 400 visas handed out to people when we were last in government, went to people that arrived illegally by boat out of our Refugee and Humanitarian program. 1 in 400. Now those figures today have changed dramatically to 1 in 5. We’ve handed out over 5,000 permanent visas to people who’ve come by boat and that has directly denied those who are waiting in camps all around the world.

HADLEY:

OK let’s get back to this other story that you are going to reveal here. Unaccompanied minors who come to Australia by boat and they’re coming in increasing numbers, claiming to be unaccompanied minors and whether we can prove they are under 18 or not, are now being given $2000 a year by taxpayers to cover the cost of what they call ‘social activities’. Now this isn’t to pay your rent –

MORRISON:

No.

HADLEY:

This is not to feed yourself or to buy your mobile phone. This is money purely and simply intended for sports registration, school excursions and other expenses. It’s been obtained by the Senate Estimates hearings. I mean, what - so they make a claim for this or is it just automatic that $2000 jumps in their bank account?

MORRISON:

It doesn’t go straight in but they’ll cover expenses for up to $2000 a year. Now what really offends me about this is the Government at the moment, the way they’re going to help Australian families is put a carbon tax on them and at the same time and as a result of rising costs of living, families all around the country will be making hard decisions about things just like this. Will we send our kids to ballet this year? Can we afford to get them new shoes for the footy or whatever it happens to be or go and do cricket - these are the first things that go in tough times.

HADLEY:

Well I get letters every footy season and I’m talking about winter from parents in western Sydney and the clubs are great – whether they’re soccer clubs, rugby league clubs, AFL clubs or rugby union clubs or netball clubs, they try to subsidise but they can’t always do it. So mums and dads might be up for $200 for socks, shorts, footy boots or netball uniforms in the case of that – and that’s – you know, mums and dads by their very nature, even if they’re doing it tough, they don’t want to tell their little boy or girl you can’t play sport this year because I’m embarrassed to admit that I can’t actually afford the extras.

MORRISON:

That will be the reality for many Australian families and it will be the reality for more under the government’s carbon tax. But you’re right, I mean in my own electorate it costs between about $120- $250 a year on various registrations – to put your kids through swimming lessons or music lessons and these are all the –sadly – what becomes discretional expenditure at times like this.

HADLEY:

This is divisive. You know the email that you’ve seen and I’ve seen about all those people – this is what old age pensioners get and this is what refugees get. And it’s wrong.

MORRISON:

It’s wrong.

HADLEY:

It’s an urban myth. I keep telling people that. You know, they say they get $55,000 as opposed to $25,000 I say that’s an urban myth because - and it’s good you say that because it’s divisive. This is equally divisive.

MORRISON:

But it’s true.

HADLEY:

The haves and have nots. And that’s the difference. This, as opposed to the one about the old aged pensioners and refugees, which is an urban myth. This is not an urban myth.

MORRISON:

Up to $2,000 for each unaccompanied minor and what I want to know from the Government is does that happen for everybody that’s in community detention? Now I’m all for the people to be not treated like they’re in prison in these places but we’ve got to have a sense of priority here, we’ve got to have a sense of perspective. And I think the Government should have a long hard look at this up to $2,000 that they’re spending a year when Australian families are going to be doing it very tough in the next twelve months, 2 years.

HADLEY:

Finally, quickly, what are we going to do about this story today in the Telegraph about 17-year-old girls being brought to Australia under this Government visa program – 200 of them granted visas and of course sponsored by their likely spouse – we’ve got a 17 year old girl from Thailand brought here by a 57-year-old man, a 17-year-old Iraqi national sponsored by a 50-year-old man and they have to be married within a short space of time to actually stay here and community groups right across the area, more than 100 17-year-olds from Lebanon granted visas, being sponsored by men closer to their age – 19 – but men up to the age of 37. Old blokes importing young brides.

MORRISON:

I thought this was appalling when I read it this morning and what I’d ask Chris Bowen to do is this – I suspect somewhere in the Immigration Department something is going awry. I’ll give him two weeks. When we come back to Parliament, I’d invite him to give a Ministerial statement in the House explaining what this all is about. But the Coalition is of a mind and we would and I would if I were the Minister launch an inquiry into this to find out to what extent this is being abused. Now the family reunion program is a good program and we want to protect the integrity of it and the fairness of it but when you see things like this, it undermines public confidence in it. We need to restore public confidence in our immigration program, it’s been shot under the policies of this government and this is just another example where we have to get it right.

HADLEY:

Just say all of them arrive, bar these other two. Wouldn’t someone in immigration say now hang on, there’s a 17-year-old from Thailand, her sponsor’s a 57-year-old man in Australia and the other one is an Iraqi national, 17, being sponsored by a 50 year old, wouldn’t someone say well hang on a sec, this isn’t quite right? We’ve got 19-year-old blokes sponsoring 17-year-old girls and by the time she gets here, she’s 18 and they get married. People get married young, there’s nothing wrong with that. But a 17-year-old and a 57-year-old, hello?

MORRISON:

Yeah, the bells should be ringing and the Immigration Minister should be ringing the bells in the Immigration department to find out how this has happened. As I said, the Coalition would undertake an inquiry into this coming into government into, not just these issues but right across the integrity of the family reunion program to make sure we preserve it for all those legitimate cases.

HADLEY:

We’ll finish by refreshing people’s memories that when Julia Gillard was in Opposition, she said famously one day when a boat arrived before the Pacific Solution, ‘another boat, another failed policy of the Howard government’. How does that still ring true in 2011?

MORRISON:

Well when she was in Opposition, she blamed the government, now she’s in Government, she blames the Opposition. She will now be accountable for, when the next boat arrives, half the boats and half the people that have turned up under this government’s watch. She’s got there even faster than Kevin Rudd who started this mess in the first place and if she wakes up and approaches the Opposition and says, look, we were wrong to get rid of the Howard Government’s solution, we should put it back in place, then she will have a willing partner.

HADLEY:

Thanks for your time.

MORRISON:

Thanks a lot Ray, good to be here.

HADLEY:

Scott Morrison from the Opposition.

Ends

Media Release : 50th boat arrival of 2011 as people smugglers' profits soar

Sat, 05 Nov 2011 13:00:00 GMT

The arrival of the 50th boat of the year, which has 60 people on board, comes as people smugglers’ profits surge with more people arriving per boat this year than did in 2010, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Scott Morrison and Shadow Minister for Justice, Customs and Border Protection, Michael Keenan said today.

“In a year the government said that people smugglers were in retreat and they would smash their business model, people smugglers are making more money per boat than ever before,” Mr Morrison said.

“Last year an average of 51 people arrived per illegal boat. This year, despite Minister Bowen claiming he had ‘people smugglers in retreat’ the average passengers per boat has leapt to 63.

“This surge of over 20% more people on each boat means an extra $100,000 profit for people smugglers per boat as more people are crammed onto vessels for the perilous journey to Australia.

“More passengers on each boat means more risks given the dangerous nature of the journey, which we were tragically reminded of off the coast of Indonesia last week.

“The Government should swallow its pride and accept the Coalition’s amendment to their changes to the Migration Act which will restore offshore processing of illegal boat arrivals with the necessary protections in place. This amendment will allow the government to pursue offshore processing in 148 countries worldwide including Papua New Guinea which is the Government’s policy,” Mr Morrison said.

Mr Keenan said: “People smugglers will continue to sell passage to Australia until the Labor Party shows them some resolve.

“You cannot afford to change policies every five minutes and constantly send mixed messages about the level of commitment you have to tackling their evil trade.

“The Labor Party has swung wildly between weak willed appeasement to policies they have tried to spin as tough, but nothing they have done has worked. “Australia needs a consistent policy that is tough enough to work and the Coalition has the policy credentials and the track record to deliver,” Mr Keenan said.