Nationality and Borders Bill (Third sitting)

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 23rd September 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)]

Q Welcome, Your Excellency. You said that in 2014 your policies had successfully stemmed the flow of illegal migrants. In September 2015 you announced that you would take 12,000 Syrians and Iraqis into Australia. Do you feel that you would have been in a position to do that, and had the capacity to do that, had you not stemmed the flow of illegal migrants into your country?

George Brandis: I remember that decision very well; it was an NSC decision and I remember the debate as if it were yesterday. I am very proud that Australia did that. Sir, let me answer your question in this way. What we have found in Australia—this is both the view of those who have studied the issue and empirically verified by many public opinion surveys—is that there is a very direct correlation between the public’s willingness to accept a big immigration programme, with a big humanitarian and refugee element, and public confidence that the Government are in control of the borders. When the public have that confidence, they back a big immigration programme. When that confidence is eroded, they are less enthusiastic about it.

That sentiment was captured by former Prime Minister Howard in words that became almost a mantra in Australian politics of the day. He said in 2004, “We will always fulfil our humanitarian obligations, but we will decide who comes into this country and the circumstances in which they come.” Australia is a big immigration nation. To give some figures, in the year in which the Syrian refugee programme was at its most ambitious, 2016-17, Australia accepted 21,968 refugees under our various humanitarian programmes. We also accepted, under our other immigration programmes—skilled migration; family reunions—183,608 people. More than 200,000 people came that year, of whom about 10% came under humanitarian and refugee programmes.

The numbers have gone up and down a bit. That was the biggest year because of the Syrian element, which was an additional element to the normal humanitarian and refugee programme. In the most recent year, 2019-20, we accepted 140,366 people—13,171 people under our humanitarian and refugee programme. The numbers over the last several years have fluctuated between more than 13,000 and almost 22,000 per year under our humanitarian and refugee programme. In most of those years that is per capita the most generous humanitarian and refugee programme in the world, second only to Canada.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

Q Thank you, High Commissioner, for taking the time to join us. To follow up on my colleague’s question about cost, I was looking through some figures from your Department of Home Affairs that suggested that the cost of the offshore programme was about $1 billion a year. Does that figure seem about right? Individually, the cost is just over $9,000 per day for every person held offshore.

George Brandis: I do not have the figures in front of me. I am not suggesting that it was not a programme that cost money to implement and administer. It was implemented and administered by foreign Governments: the Governments of Nauru and New Guinea. Nevertheless, a substantial proportion of the funding came from Australia. I am not disputing the figure that you give; you have done the research, sir. I do not have the financial figures, but may I take that question on notice and get them to you?

[Paul Blomfield]

Q Certainly, that would be very helpful, but does that sort of ballpark seem about right? You are saying that it is an expensive programme.

George Brandis: Please do not take from my silence that I am averring that it is right. Certainly, there was a not insignificant cost. I do not dispute that.

[Paul Blomfield]

Q On a different point, is it correct to say that you have not offshored anybody since 2014?

George Brandis: No, I do not think that is right. I have a disaggregated year-by-year figure on the offshoring. It certainly is right, as I said to your colleague before, that it was a front-end-loaded sort of policy, in the sense that once the people smugglers’ business had been destroyed and the boats stopped coming, the need for that leg of the policy diminished. But as for the date at which the last of the offshoring was undertaken, I am not in a position to tell you, other than to say that it was in the early part of the policy.

[Paul Blomfield]

Q I took that from a report by the University of New South Wales. The same report said that of the 4,180 people offshored during that peak period between 2012 and 2014, almost half had returned to Australia by 2021. Do you recognise that?

George Brandis: No, I do not.

[Paul Blomfield]

Q So the university is wrong in that?

George Brandis: I am not aware of the report to which you refer. I mean, let’s not beat around the bush here—this was a very controversial policy at the time. It became less controversial with the passage of time, for two reasons. One was that it worked. Secondly, the Opposition changed their position from opposition to the policy to support for it. However, a number of community organisations, universities and various institutions and faculties within universities continued to criticise the policies, which they are perfectly at liberty to do, and a lot of figures were thrown around. I am not familiar with the particular report to which you refer and therefore I cannot verify the data quoted within it.

[Paul Blomfield]

Q Okay. I understand that; we are throwing all sorts of stuff at you. But it was a report published last month by the Kaldor Centre—

George Brandis: The Kaldor Centre—

[The Chair]

Mr Blomfield, this will have to be the last question, please.

[Paul Blomfield]

Okay.

George Brandis: The Kaldor Centre is a centre established as an advocacy centre and a research centre to advance the interests of refugees, and it takes a particular point of view. I am not deprecating its statistical or academic rigour at all; I am merely pointing out that it approaches this debate with a particular advocacy point in mind.

[Paul Blomfield]

I take that point—

[The Chair]

I am sorry. I said that had to be the last question. I have to try and get everybody in and there are a lot of Members. Minister.