19 December, 2011
Sky News – AM Agenda
Kieran Gilbert and Andrew Leigh MP
19 December 2011
8:30am
E & OE
Subjects: Asylum seekers, Julian Assange
KIERAN GILBERT:
Good morning and welcome to the program. Australia has sent search teams to Indonesia, where 180 asylum seekers are feared dead after their vessel sank off the coast of Java. The search teams are very pessimistic about the prospects of finding more survivors given rough conditions in the area. Joining me on the program this morning to discuss this latest asylum seeker tragedy, we have Labor MP Andrew Leigh here in the Canberra studio. Good morning Andrew.
ANDREW LEIGH:
Good morning Kieran.
GILBERT:
And from Melbourne, Liberal frontbencher Senator Mitch Fifield. Senator, good morning to you.
MITCH FIFIELD:
Good morning Kieran.
GILBERT:
It was simply a matter of time, wasn’t it, before we were going to see something like this?
FIFIELD:
Sadly, since the current Government changed their border protection policies in August 2008, we’ve seen over 14,000 people come by boat, courtesy of people smugglers. We’ve seen over 260 boats. This is a tragedy. But it’s hard to get away from the fact that the up-tick in the people smuggler business happened after the current Government changed their policies, after they dismantled temporary protection visas and offshore processing. Sadly, this sort of tragedy is much more likely.
GILBERT:
Senator Fifield hundreds of asylum seekers have now died amid this political impasse in Australia. I’ll come to the Government’s position in a moment, but both sides of politics support offshore processing, yet that’s not being implemented. One of the sides has to move here, doesn’t it?
FIFIELD:
The Coalition has always supported offshore processing. We put it in place when we were in office and it proved effective in deterring people smugglers from going about their trade. The current Government said when they were in opposition that offshore processing was ‘immoral’. They dismantled offshore processing. It was only in the face of overwhelming evidence that they had got their policy wrong that they belatedly conceded that offshore processing had merit. We then saw the proposal for East Timor offshore processing, which never came to anything. We then had the half-baked Malaysian Solution half-baked but also a bad model. When the Coalition had offshore processing, we essentially controlled the facts on the ground in places like Nauru. What we are advocating is that there should be a base-level of protection, and that should be that a nation that does offshore processing for Australia should be a signatory to the UN Convention for Refugees. We put forward that very simple amendment, and the Government rejected that. The reason that there isn’t offshore processing today is because this Government dismantled it, and they’ve only had half-baked proposals to bring it back.
GILBERT:
Andrew Leigh, the Government’s been unable to deliver on the policy it wants. Why not say, ‘OK, something’s got to happen, we can’t see tragedies like this again.’ We’ve got Cardinal Pell of the Catholic Church saying “it’s difficult to see any alternative to the Government and Opposition promptly agreeing on effective offshore deterrents. Australians do not want to see more tragedies like this.” Some compromise has got to be reached. Why not implement the Coalition policy and be done with it? At least to put something in place?
LEIGH:
Kieran, to be honest with you this morning, I think when boats are scouring the sea looking for 180 men, women and children who have died, it is not the time to be playing politics on immigration.
GILBERT:
No, it’s not about the politics. What I’m asking you about is a way forward. Because we’re talking about the human rights of people, but then we’re seeing these fatalities. Surely some compromise has got to be reached, where the parties put the politics to one side and say, ‘OK, we will adopt your approach and move forward.’
LEIGH:
I’m just being clear about what I’m going to say this morning. I’m not going to follow Mitch in attacking what the Coalition has done. There is much to attack in the Coalition, but today is not the day in that. When we put forward the legislation into Parliament, I raised the issue of drownings. You read those reports on SIEV-X, on Christmas Island tragedies, these are hideous events that have taken place. The deaths of small children as their mothers held them out of the water in Christmas Island. That for me is why it is absolutely important to have a set of policies that send strong disincentives to getting on boats and that these leaking boats aren’t sent to Australia.
GILBERT:
But you don’t have that, unfortunately. Let’s go back to Senator Fifield. You’ve heard what Andrew Leigh has said, your response to that?
FIFIELD:
I don’t think anyone is playing politics with this tragic situation. But there are facts. And the facts are that the incidence of people smuggling has increased dramatically since the Labor Government changed border protection policies in August 2008. That’s a fact. It’s also a fact that the people smuggling trade essentially stopped when we were in office. It’s also a fact that there have been some significant tragedies, with many people losing their lives, since this evil trade increased in frequency. What we’re talking about here is what are the right policies to stop this evil trade. You will hear Government ministers say often that they want to break the people smugglers’ business model. But it’s also a fact that it is the current Government that gave the people smugglers their business model by abolishing temporary protection visas, by abolishing offshore processing. That gave the people smugglers a product to sell. We can see ministers, as we’ve seen over the last few days, refer to the people smugglers as scum, which they are. They can thump their chests as much as they like, but that won’t stop the boats from coming. What will stop the boats from coming is bringing back temporary protection visas, brining back fair dinkum offshore processing with appropriate safeguards. That’s what needs to happen. That’s not playing politics.
GILBERT:
I’ll put this to you one more time, Andrew Leigh, to give you an option to respond. Obviously the Government and the ministers and the Prime Minister will make the call at the end of the day and it’s beyond your remit on that, but it just seems odd to me that the two major parties support this process. The Coalition is standing firm on that, I just don’t see why the Government would not say ‘OK, let’s adopt your policy and hopefully – fingers crossed – it will work.’
LEIGH:
Because it’s not going to work, Kieran. We have very clear evidence on that that Nauru didn’t deter people smugglers, and that the best way to put in place strong disincentives was the Government’s Malaysia agreement. But today is a day for recognising this tragedy, not for playing politics in the way Mitch I’m afraid is doing.
GILBERT:
OK, let’s move on. I want to talk about Julian Assange. Another issue, a very different issue of course. A number of public figures have called on Kevin Rudd to make sure Julian Assange is protected from rendition to the USA. Senator Fifield, would you endorse that? Malcolm Fraser is among the signatories to this open letter.
FIFIELD:
Every Australian citizen who finds themselves the subject of legal proceedings overseas is entitled to the full consular assistance from the Australian Government, and that certainly should be happening. I think we need to be careful in the case of Mr Assange that we don’t pre-judge what may happen in Sweden. It’s hard to guess a few steps down the track what happens if he leaves the UK. These are hard things to try to anticipate in advance. But I think it’s important to hark back to when the Wikileaks cables first came into public prominence that the Prime Minister said that Mr Assange had committed a crime. She didn’t specify what crime or in what country. She still hasn’t done so. I think we need to be careful not to pre-judge. To let the legal processes take their course. But obviously as an Australian citizen he should be given full consular assistance.
GILBERT:
Andrew Leigh, should Mr Rudd be doing more to protect Mr Assange’s rights here?
LEIGH:
Kieran, Julian Assange is getting the same consular assistance that any of us would expect to get if we were charged with a crime overseas. But it’s also important to recognise the context in which Wikileaks is operating. Wikileaks and News of the World have much in common. They believe we should live in a world where no one has a right to confidential information. And in the world of diplomacy, that’s an enormously dangerous suggestion. We know that the alternative to diplomacy is war. Julian Assange himself said News of The World didn’t go far enough, and I guess, to me, that illustrates a serious problem with the Wikileaks method of operation. So yes, absolutely, every consular assistance, but I don’t have a great deal of sympathy for the Wikileaks method of operation.
GILBERT:
Andrew Leigh, Senator Fifield, thanks for this morning. I appreciate it.
LEIGH:
Thanks Kieran.
FIFIELD:
Thank you.
ENDS