Subjects: More than 800 days of no illegal boat arrivals to Australia; opening of Nauru Primary School extension; third country resettlement; security screening.
E&EO…………………………………………………………………………………………..
LAURA JAYES:
The Government does have a good story to tell when it comes to its record on stopping the boats. Peter Dutton today pointed out that it has been 800 days since there was any successful boat arrival to Australia, but one thing that is still a bit of a blight on the Government's record is its legacy when it comes to offshore processing.
There's been report after report painting a pretty awful situation on Nauru and Manus Island, but the Government is well aware of that. I asked Peter Dutton today, the Immigration Minister, if he fears some of the bad publicity on Nauru could undermine the Government's package and full suite of policies.
PETER DUTTON:
There's a lot of propaganda out there, to speak frankly, there is a lot of propaganda out there being pushed by advocates who are opposed to any of our secure border policies – that's the reality.
We've invested significant amounts of money into Nauru and into Manus. It's true that when the Gillard Government first entered into the arrangement on Nauru, when they had a 1,000 people a week arriving by boat, that it was a very desperate situation. People were living in unacceptable conditions. They were in cramped conditions.
Now we've turned that around and the modern reality is that we have a new school facility that's opened only last week. We've got children who are going to school. We've got first class facilities in terms of the hospital and medical centre provided there. We provide significant funding to the Nauruan Government to engage medical experts to visit the island. But in the end people don't want to be there regardless of the conditions, they want to come to our country.
People do seek to demean the arrangements that are present on Nauru or in Manus. All I would ask is that people look at the reality and the fact as opposed to some of the hype.
I do want to get people off Nauru and I do want to get people off Manus, but I need to do it in such a way that doesn't restart the boats and doesn't enable people smugglers to get back in control of the situation which is what happened when Labor was last in government.
LAURA JAYES:
This new school that has just been built on Nauru, is this an admission that really Nauru is part of the long-term solution and children, in particular, will have to be there for some time?
PETER DUTTON:
There's no question in my mind that Nauru will remain as a partner, as a regional partner, with Australia for a long period of time to come. Whilst ever there is illegal people movements in our part of the world, Australia will need a regional processing centre. Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard both realised that. Mr Rudd in dismantling the Howard Government's regional processing centres commenced the boat trade almost overnight and we will always have regional processing as part of a deterrent mechanism.
We need to provide services in a humane way and in a way that Australians can be proud of and if you look at the new school facility that was opened, $8.4 million, there are 141 children on Nauru who are enrolled to go to school and we've engaged with Brisbane Catholic Education, now 11 teachers delivering the curriculum on island.
So there will be some form of support within Nauru for a long period of time because we do know that people smugglers would put people back onto boats tomorrow and I hope though that now we've stopped the boats, we can keep them stopped, but at the same time remove women and children as a priority and then the rest of the people from Nauru and Manus after that.
LAURA JAYES:
You say it's your priority to remove women and children, you also said that a couple of months ago, but progress does seem slow. Are you any closer to doing that and does it have to include a third country solution?
PETER DUTTON:
Well just to go back on the achievements that we've had. I mean it's not just stopping boats and stopping drownings at sea, we've been able to get children out of detention here in Australia. So Labor had 2,000 children in detention when we came to office, they had opened 17 detention centres and there was an $11 billion blowout in the Budget. We have been able to return money to the Budget, we've been able to get those children out of detention and we've been able to close the 17 detention centres.
LAURA JAYES:
You still haven't got women and children off Nauru.
PETER DUTTON:
Well we have got many off there, but we want to get the remaining ones off Manus – that is single males off Manus – and the women and children and families off Nauru.
That does involve a third country arrangement and as I've said previously we have had over a long period of time discussions with third countries and when there's an announcement to make we'll make that.
But as I say, we are working day and night with third countries because we have been very clear that if people have sought to come to Australia by boat they will never settle permanently here.
LAURA JAYES:
Having just returned from New York though, have you made progress?
PETER DUTTON:
We've spoken with a number of partners over a long period of time and I'm confident that in due course we'll be able to make announcements around the movement of those women and children. I think that is a priority and we've demonstrated our bona fides in getting children out of detention on the mainland and there were some very difficult cases.
But overall Labor had at its peak 10,000 people in detention here in Australia on the mainland. That number is now down to roughly about 500 and many of those cases will be people that have been released into the community, but have committed offences and they've gone back into immigration detention. So again I want to get that number down to zero if that's possible as well.
LAURA JAYES:
If I could just ask you about the 22 of the 12,000 Syrian refugee intake that have had negative national security assessments against them, could there be more or is that processing largely done?
PETER DUTTON:
Well there could be more and we're working with our partners.
Labor's been very critical. They're saying that, you know, all along this process that we should rush, we should get these people here, we should dispense with some of the checks and I think frankly our prudent approach has been vindicated by the reality that we're dealing with.
We know that ISIS has put sleepers into parts of France……
LAURA JAYES:
…have they been that serious, some of these 22? Do you think they could be ISIS sleepers?
PETER DUTTON:
…they have flagged concerns to our intelligence agencies and they will not be coming to our country and if we had have rushed this programme, as Labor was proposing, the potential was there for these people to slip in under the radar…
LAURA JAYES:
…so to justify, sorry to interrupt, but to justify the length of time this processing has taken, can you give us an idea whether these 22 were caught at the beginning of the process or late in the piece?
PETER DUTTON:
There's a process that we go through in terms of people providing their documents, establishing there argument about their refugee status or claim, at the same time in a parallel process we conduct the biometric tests, we send that off to our partners, particularly to the US and the application essentially is held in abeyance until we can get the results back. So these people weren't close to coming to Australia, but again had we rushed the programme, as Labor was proposing, these people may well have got through, may well have slipped through the net.
LAURA JAYES:
The Immigration Minister there Peter Dutton explaining why it has taken so long to process these 12,000 Syrian refugees.
[ends]
