E&OE...............................................................................................
PRIME MINSITER:
Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. Mr Ruddock and I have called
this news conference to announce the Government's decision to
provide a major boost to the capacity of Australia to fight the growing
challenge of illegal immigration. I should point out at the beginning
that so far the response to the increased threat of illegal immigration
to this country has been highly successful. Today's measures
which are very significant are designed to preempt what we see to
be an increased attempt by people from various parts of the world
to engage in people smuggling into Australia.
Australia has become increasingly attractive, not only because of
the quality of life in this country but because there is a perception
in some quarters that it is possible once one has arrived in Australia
to use the legal system to stay here for a lengthy period of time
even though one may have been initially arrived as an illegal immigrant.
Today's measures which provide $124 million over a period of
four years do provide a major increase in the capacity of this country
to improve the surveillance of its coast line, and importantly, very
importantly, today's measures increase Australia's capacity
to detect and deter illegal immigrants and immigration before they
get to this country and before in some cases they commence their departure
from the source country.
There are nine principle measures contained in today's announcement.
Today's announcement arises out of the establishment of a taskforce
under the chairmanship of Mr Max Moore-Wilton, the secretary of my
department, which I established in April of this year. I can report
that every single recommendation made by the taskforce has been adopted
by the Government.
The principle measures involve two additional Dash 8 aircraft to extend
the footprint and the intensity of Coastwatch aerial surveillance,
particularly along the east coast. And if you have a look at the map
you can see, indicated in red, the existing regular surveillance area
,and the area in green, in outer areas that as a result of the new
measures that I'm announcing today will come within the footprint
of the surveillance activities. So we're going to provide two
additional Dash 8 aircraft and they will extend the footprint and
the intensity of Coastwatch's aerial surveillance, particularly
along the eastern coastline.
We're going to provide an additional night capable helicopter
to be deployed in the Torres Strait. We're going to establish
a national surveillance centre at Coastwatch's Canberra headquarters
with electronic links to State government agencies and defence establishments.
We're going to establish a new position of Director-General of
Coastwatch who will report directly to the head of the Australian
Customs Service, and this position will be filled on secondment by
a senior officer of the Australian Defence Force. And liaison arrangements
between Coastwatch, Defence and other agencies will be significantly
strengthened.
Importantly we're going to expand Australia's capacity to
detect and deter illegal immigration from source and transit countries
through posting twelve immigration officers to major source and transit
countries, including as airport liaison officers at key airports.
We're also going to conclude bilateral agreements with source
and transit countries for cooperation on people smuggling issues and
to provide for the return of illegal arrivals. And we're going
to provide strong support for the conclusion as soon as possible of
a protocol on people smuggling to the proposed UN Convention on Transnational
Organised Crime.
We're going to establish a high level information oversight committee
chaired by the Office of National Assessments to coordinate information
and intelligence on people smuggling, and we're going to introduce
comprehensive legislative amendments which the Government will put
before Parliament shortly to strengthen maritime investigatory and
enforcement powers to complement legislation on stronger penalties
against people smuggling.
The Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, Mr Ruddock,
has indicated on a number of occasions over the past few months that
there is a very significant increase in people smuggling activities
around the world. It's estimated that illegal immigration reaches
something like 4 million people annually. Australia is clearly seen
as a very attractive target. There's no doubt about that. Australia
is seen as a more attractive target than many other countries and
that is because it's a very attractive country in which to live,
it has a very stable political system, it's a very fair and open
society, we have a very big coastline and importantly also we are
seen, or we are perceived to have laws that do make it easy for people
once they get here to tie up the legal system and stay for a long
period of time. And can I say on that again that the Labor Party would
help enormously the national interest if it facilitated the passage
through the Senate of some legislation that will deal with that problem.
And Mr Ruddock has asked them in the national interest on a number
of occasions and I repeat that request today. Protecting this country
against illegal immigration ought to be above partisan politics. And
we've been trying for, what Philip, a couple of years?
RUDDOCK:
Yes, it's been underway for some time now.
PRIME MINISTER:
It's been underway for some time now to get this legislation
through the Senate and if we could get it through the Senate it would
send a very strong message to the crime syndicates in potential source
countries who are trying to exploit the human misery involving people
smuggling. It would send a very strong signal to them that we are
no longer such an easy mark. But that of course doesn't mean
that we shouldn't be taking other measures and the measures that
I've announced today will provide a major boost to our capacity
to fight illegal immigration, and it will as the map indicates, significantly
increase our capacity for coastal surveillance. We've chosen
areas which we believe will provide the greatest possible return from
the investment undertaken. But these measures are undertaken in a
preemptive fashion against future risk, not acknowledging that there's
been any past failure because the immigration authorities and the
customs authorities and the Australian Federal Police have been very
successful so far. And I want to compliment the Minister in particular
for the skillful way he's handled the very difficult issues including
a number of very well reported examples in recent months of detecting
a scheme for illegal immigrants to come to this country, sending a
warning through our embassies in those countries that they shouldn't
even try, and those warnings being highly successful. But we're
not complacent and because of that we've decided to make this
additional substantial commitment which we believe will dramatically
strengthen our capacity to deal with illegal immigration. Any questions.
JOURNALIST:
Yes. Can you briefly outline what that legislation is that you think
that you want passed through?
RUDDOCK:
Well there are two pieces of legislation. The first relates to penalties
and it's going to the Labor caucus this week. I would like to
see it through the Senate. It can be attached to a bill that's
awaiting passage and in that sense we can deal with the increase in
penalties very quickly if we get that level of cooperation. The second
issue is in relation to judicial review. The bill's been before
the Senate for quite a while now. It was reintroduced at the beginning
of this Parliamentary term. And the Labor Party and others have indicated
their opposition to it. I've put a number of propositions to
the Labor Party in the way of dealing with those people who are principally
in detention. We might be able to put a privative clause in relation
to those matters to expedite our dealing with people who are held
in detention because judicial review can mean that you have to detain
people for many years. And you know the sorts of difficulties that
occur. We saw that in relation to the lady from China, that if you
have people in detention over long periods of time exploiting all
those possibilities, even though they have no lawful right to be here,
it can produce that sort of opportunity for delay. The bill is one
which is designed to enhance the decisions of the Refugee Review Tribunal
so that they would be final and determinative and that the option
of going to the court for further judicial review would no longer
be available.
JOURNALIST:
Isn't it true that sometimes when appeals are made against the
Refugee Review Tribunal decision that they are thrown out, and that
person who's allowed to stay? That's the case at the moment
isn't it?
RUDDOCK:
Well it's true that there have on rare occasions been decisions
that have suggested that a legal, and sometimes I must say highly
technical point can lead to a decision being revisited. But what we
know is that over 9000 decisions over four or five years, less than
50 actually different outcomes were obtained through court intervention.
And if you compare that with the final appeal which exists for everybody,
which is the application to the Minister for exercise of discretion,
I would have acceded in appropriate humanitarian cases to something
like 150 cases over the same period of time. Now my view is any lawyer
worth his salt ought to be able to put before me a substantial case,
and they certainly don't need to go to the courts at tens of
millions of dollars to get a different outcome.
JOURNALIST:
Is it something you've discussed with the Democrats?
RUDDOCK:
It's something that I discussed with the Democrats, Senator Harradine,
the Greens, and Labor. But look, there is a lobby and the lobby has
a degree of self interest. It's a very profitable area. We've
seen the marketing of class actions now by some members of the legal
profession which have led to 5,000 people, most of them of course
in the community as over stayers, but 5,000 people able to remain
in Australia. In many cases accessing Medicare and until we limited
access to work rights fairly recently, able to access work rights
lawfully. And of course one suspects that many of them having maintained
themselves here lawfully on a bridging visa because a class action
has started are probably unlawfully working in any event.
JOURNALIST:
[inaudible]
RUDDOCK:
Well the penalties in the legislation involve ten years penal servitude
as a maximum for being involved in people smuggling, and 20 years
as a maximum penalty for those who are involved in people smuggling
of 5 or more persons. Look there's one other matter I would mention.
I've seen in the press lately some comments that have suggested
that we should have a fairly benign view in relation to people smuggling,
that in some way these are people of great ingenuity and people who
would eventually make outstanding Australian citizens and therefore
we ought to put this issue as if it's of little consequence to
one side. There are very very important reasons why we have visa arrangements
to test people's eligibility to come, and we seek to enter people
within a framework of law.
It turns on the need to protect the Australian community not only
from quarantine risks that can occur if people land clandestinely,
which can jeopardise our economy in very significant ways but more
importantly, people who come in this way, if they were able to land
clandestinely may well have diseases, because they wouldn't have
been medically checked. Very often they come from places where tuberculosis
is a major disease that impacts on these communities. And any view
that you should turn a blind eye to these matters, as I have seen
written in some pieces lately, I think shows a very scant regard for
the broad national interest.
JOURNALIST:
[Inaudible]
RUDDOCK:
Well there certainly are. We have been very successful to date in
thwarting a number of very large scale people smuggling ventures.
There was the 2000 people who were buying a passage on a vessel from
Somalia which when it was disclosed that they had no lawful right
to enter Australia they were very angry with the organisers, because
they had been lead to believe that such a venture would be lawful.
Now we saw the same in Indonesia this last week, where 100 young Javanese
males were the subjects of a people smuggling venture that was being
put together. Working together with the Indonesian authorities we
were able to properly brief people as to what their lawful entitlements
were and to discover the extent to which they were being mislead by
the organisers, they were being mislead to believe that what they
were doing might well be lawful, they were being mislead into believing
that that in due course there could be amnesties in relation to people
who might get here, they were being mislead in relation to their ability
to access employment in Australia. And one of the aspects of the measures
that the Prime Minister has announced today will be an enhanced capacity
to work abroad in alerting people to the way in which you do apply
to Australia if you wish to come lawfully and the potential risks
that befall you if you try to come unlawfully.
JOURNALIST:
What is the situation on the ground in Fujian Province, which is one
of the big problem areas, which has been one of the centres of illegal
immigration for more than ten years?
RUDDOCK:
Well it's been a centre of illegal immigration to other countries.
The arrivals in Australia in the past were primarily from Beihei and
a significant programme was put in place complemented, I might say,
by successful returns. And what we have been seeking to do in relation
to the returns that we have been able to facilitate this year, on
each occasion is to ensure that in the media in China attention is
drawn to the fact that people attempted to enter Australia in this
way, that they have been returned, that they were duped, that they
suffered significant economic loss and that people ought not to be
inveigled by false promises. While we have had some comments to say
about the Opposition about where they could work cooperatively with
us in some additional measures, I might say, that one of the very
useful statements that was made recently, was that there would be
no amnesty, for people who arrive in Australian unlawfully. The Government
has affirmed that that is its position and the Opposition did, in
relation to that matter, indicate that if at some stage in the future
there was some change of Government there would be no amnesty that
would be implemented by them.
So we are endeavouring to ensure that the message in the broadest
possible way is brought to people in Fujian. The Secretary of my department
went there along with Andrew Metcalf, who is the head of the board
of control area and spent some time in the Fujian province. The head
of our mission in Beijing was there with the last group of people
who were returned from Australia. The media were informed of those
matters at that time. I have spoken to journalists from a number of
Chinese papers including the People's Daily, to brief them, from
here, on the way in which if people have an aspiration to come to
Australia they should test those matters at our Mission, rather than
being inveigled into these sorts of exercises.
JOURNALIST:
[Inaudible]
RUDDOCK:
I mean that is a, I said to the Prime Minister that he better be prepared
for this question
PRIME MINISTER
And we are.
RUDDOCK:
And the situation is this. We locate something like 12,000 people
a year who are unlawfully in Australia. Now that is a large number
of people. We estimate that there are 50 51,000 people who
have overstayed visitors and so we would guess that more than 20%
of people are located during the course of a year. Now when you do
locate people you debrief them. You find out what travel documents
they've got, when they came to Australia and how. And while we
find an occasional stowaway, and stowaways have been a feature of
illegal immigration over a long period of time, we have never yet
found a person who has landed in Australia clandestinely and is here
unlawfully.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, the measures that you announced today, are they in
response to the increase in targeting of Australia that has been noticed
in recent years? Would they have been made without...inaudible
PRIME MINSITER:
Well, they are being undertaken because there is a heightened challenge
to this country from illegal immigration, that's obvious. The
Minister has outlined the steps we have taken to prevent hundreds
of people starting the journey to Australia. There have been some
well publicised illegal arrivals and those people have all been successfully
intercepted and they are being returned in an orderly, efficient and
speedy fashion.
But we can't be complacent. We have a big coastline, we are attractive
and we're seen at the moment, unfortunately in some source countries
as having laws that do allow people, once they get a foothold here,
to tie up the system for a long time. And we want to send a very strong
message to the rest of the world that we are not only strengthening
ourselves against illegal immigration but if we can get that legislation
through the parliament that would send a very loud message to the
rest of the world that the idea that we are a very soft touch is no
longer valid and it is very important that we get that legislation
through, very important indeed.
These measures will greatly strengthen, as you can see, the footprint
is very significantly expanded, the green area illustrates the additional
area that will be under regular surveillance and I think it is a very
good investment and I think it will give a lot of reassurance to the
Australian public that we are alive to the threat posed by illegal
immigration. You can't eliminate it, you can't stop people
wanting to come to Australia. But you can send a very strong message
to them that they can't expect to be allowed to stay here and
tie up the legal system. And you can also strengthen your country's
capacity to detect illegal arrivals and that is what we are doing
and very importantly by sending additional immigration officers to
source countries we're increasing our capacity to seek out those
who would seek to come here, tell them that there's nothing in
it and warn them of the consequences of coming. And that kind of preventative
approach is a very good investment. It's worked very well so
far and we're going to increase it by posting additional officers
from the department, Mr Ruddock's department to the potential
source countries.
JOURNALIST:
What countries are they going to?
RUDDOCK:
The particularly places that they'll be placed will be Shanghai,
Guangzhou, New Delhi, Colombo, Nairobi, Pretoria and Ankara, and the
airport liaison staff will be in Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Denpasar,
Singapore and Dubai. If you look at the areas from which at the moment
we are targeted and it's both in relation to aircraft arrivals
as well as boat arrivals. China has been significant. Areas like Sri
Lanka, much of Africa, particularly through...from places like
Somalia we've seen efforts and a good deal out of the Middle
East, Iraq, Iran, more recently Bangladesh. Countries like Afghanistan,
Algeria, have been the areas in which we are increasingly seeing unlawful
movements.
JOURNALIST:
What boats do you know of that are heading this way and [inaudible]?
RUDDOCK:
Well they're operational matters and we.....
JOURNALIST:
There's talk of a boat sinking somewhere near the Philippines.
RUDDOCK:
I'm not aware of such a matter but certainly we hear of matters
from time to time. That's intelligence information. That's
one of the reasons we want to have these additional staff.
PRIME MINISTER:
You can be rest assured we'll provide what information we can
but no information that might limit our capacity to deal effectively
with the problem.
JOURNALIST:
[inaudible]
RUDDOCK:
No I wouldn't say that either.
JOURNALIST:
People smuggling aside, the most unlawful, you know, the country from
which most unlawful people are here, is that from the UK isn&