Topics: immigration, carbon tax repeal, higher education reform

E&OE…

Chris Hammer
 We’re joined now by Senator Scott Ryan, Liberal Senator for Victoria. Good Morning, Senator.

Scott Ryan
Good morning, Chris.

Hammer
If we can turn first to the topic of asylum seekers, that seems to be dominating the news today. This group of asylum seekers that’s being held on the high seas, on a customs boat, is there any difference legally whether their asylum claims are assessed at sea or on Manus Island or Nauru?

Ryan
Well Chris, as that matter is before the courts it’s not appropriate for me to make a specific comment regarding that. The court will consider those issues among others.

Hammer
But the Prime Minister commented on it this morning. Why cannot we ask a question, discuss an issue, about the difference being assessed on the high seas and on Manus or Nauru?

Ryan
Well Chris, you can ask the question. It’s not my portfolio so I’m not in a specific position to comment on the legal specifics of that. In general terms, I’m not going to comment on a matter before the courts.

Hammer
Why not? How does the principle of sub judice affect the High Court? Surely a Justice of the High Court is not likely to be influenced by anything we might say here.

Ryan
Well look, Chris, it’s outside my portfolio and you’ve asked a very specific legal question that isn’t in my portfolio, and in general terms a specific matter before the courts is not something I provide comment on.

Hammer
Ok. Labor is providing comment. There allegation is that the Government is keeping these people on the high sea rather than processing them on Manus or Nauru simply for political reasons, not for legal reasons. Their allegation is it is because Scott Morrison wants to ‘keep a clean score card’ as they put it.

Ryan
Well, on these issues Labor simply has no credibility. I mean there were 30 occasions where Labor returned asylum seekers to Sri Lanka. On issues of secrecy, I do recall not being able to get answers out of the Senate when the Immigration Minister was in the Senate on the Oceanic Viking issue. Labor speaks out of both sides of its mouth; it’s just duplicitous on these matters. The results of Labor’s policies are there for all to see; we had 50,000 unlawful arrivals. What the Government has sought to do, and what we have been successful in doing to this point, is stopping the people smuggling trade. That means that our borders are more secure; we don’t have thousands of people arriving on our shores. It means that criminal rackets operating in other countries aren’t operating in the same way, and it also means that we’re not having the tragedy of deaths at sea. So Labor’s duplicity of trying to speak to its left wing, by talking about certain issues in one way, and on the other hand, in the same interview, Richard Marles tries to claim credit for the success of policies which evidence shows that it’s this Government’s policies that have made the difference. It shows that Labor’s completely duplicitous.

Hammer
The Government is clearly trying to deter people from getting on boats and coming to Australia. The previous case, not the case that is before the High Court, but the case where people were repatriated directly to Sri Lanka. Is it your belief that serves as a greater deterrence than say sending people to Manus Island or Nauru for assessment?

Ryan
Well I think it’s important when we look at previous cases, which as you said that isn’t a matter before the High Court, the overwhelming majority of those people, in fact nearly all of them, didn’t come from an ethnic minority in Sri Lanka and I saw some people commenting who were allegedly part of that party. They talked about economic opportunity in Australia. This is part of a whole suite of policies to ensure that people don’t get on boats and attempt to achieve unlawful immigration outcomes to Australia. We’re unashamed about saying we should be able to choose who comes to our country. We should be able to choose the refugees that we resettle and which we’ve done for decades. So that is one part of a great range of policies that we’ve put in place as part of Operation Sovereign Borders.

Hammer
Ok, and you’re confident that the Government retains very much public support on this policy?

Ryan
I’m quite confident, very confident indeed, that the Australian public want a government that can control immigration outcomes. As Paul Kelly and a number of other prominent commentators have written, that has always been an important of a very strong immigration and a very strong humanitarian program that Australia has always proudly offered. The Australian people expect a government to be able to control our borders; it’s a key test of a government’s competence.

Hammer
Ok, now on a related matter, and there’s a story in the Fairfax media today saying that women held in detention on Christmas Island, mothers, have attempted to commit suicide under the belief that their children, born on Christmas Island, would therefore stand a better chance of being resettled in Australia. A very kind of harrowing story. What can the Government do about this?

Ryan
Well one of the things we can do is to stop people being in the situation where they come unlawfully to Australia. I mean if people are not getting on boats they don’t find themselves in detention for that reason, because there’s been an attempted unlawful entry, then we do avoid this problem. That is one of the reasons we’ve been so keen to stop the boats is. Look, I’ve seen a number of reports and I’ve heard a bit on radio. There have been different reasons given, and indeed different numbers of women. I think we can all accept that they sound like, as you described, harrowing circumstances, but as the Prime Minister also made clear this morning, we can’t subject our immigration programme to a sort of moral blackmail.

Hammer
But is it a type of moral blackmail? Because as I understand it they’re not saying, they’re not sort of posing a threat; saying that if you do this we’ll commit suicide. They’re actually not threatening to do it; they’re actually doing it under the belief that…

Ryan
Well I think that you’re drawing a fine distinction there; the article you referred to, again I don’t know the specific events other than what I’ve read, does try and actually link implicitly the two events. We can’t subject our immigration programme to the threats of, what I understand are quite tragic and personal circumstances, but threats of self-harm.

Hammer
Moving on, you’re a Senator. The Senate is sitting this week, the House of Reps not. Could be a very big day for the Senate today; the carbon tax repeal bills may well go through today, later today. Palmer United will support the repeal of the carbon tax, but they’ve put up this proposition of having a dormant emissions trading scheme. Does it make sense for the Government to support that meaning that there would be a zero dollar amount on carbon?

Ryan
Well the first point you raise is the most critical one, which is the Government is attempting to bring the carbon tax to a vote. There have been 33 hours of debate on the carbon tax repeal bills this year in the Senate; which Labor and the Greens have filibustered to an unprecedented degree, and are attempting to do so again this week. The speakers who are speaking on this bill, and Labor’s padding out speaking lists and filibustering, are all speakers who spoke earlier this year and their speeches haven’t changed. Their reasons haven’t changed. The only reason that the crossbenchers’ votes are so critical in this is because the Labor Party and the Greens refuse to listen to the will of the people and the mandate from the last election that we had to repeal the carbon tax. With respect to the point you make about a so-called dormant ETS, the Government’s position and the Coalition’s position is and has always been that we will be part of responsible international action, but we’re not going to harm ourselves economically and impose burdens on Australian businesses, costs on Australian jobs and costs on Australian consumers that aren’t imposed elsewhere. It shouldn’t be cheaper to import something from a carbon tax neutral country because there’s no carbon tax, but we have a self-imposed carbon tax here that makes making the same product more expensive. So there are, I understand, discussions going on between the Government and the crossbenchers on a range of these issues. As the Prime Minister’s made clear, we will be respectful and courteous. We respect their election and we ask them to respect our mandate to repeal the carbon tax.

Hammer
Can I flick that question around the other way; why wouldn’t you support such a measure from Palmer United seeing it wouldn’t put a price on carbon at least until five major trading partners do?

Ryan
One of the reason the Coalition opposed the CPRS, Kevin Rudd’s ETS, was that it came with very substantial compliance costs. It came with very substantial bureaucratic costs. Now I’m not going to comment on that specific proposal. I haven’t seen Mr Palmer’s specific proposal in detail, and as I mentioned there are discussions going on between him and Mr Hunt about the Coalition’s commitment to repeal the carbon tax and our attempts to do so this week. But there are many reasons why we would not set up a bureaucratic structure that imposes costs on Australia when our competitors aren’t.

Hammer
Ok, now as I said in the introduction, you’re a Senator for Victoria. You’re also the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education. There’s a story in Fairfax media today about that agitation at Sydney University to oppose fee increases. Is there a danger with the Government’s policy of deregulation, deregulating universities that one or two universities here or there could be picked out of the system because that particular university opposes fee increases or fee changes? That that is a threat to the system as a whole?

Ryan
Well Chris, the whole point of deregulation is to allow universities to choose their own path and to remove them from the straightjacket of Commonwealth regulation that’s been so strict for so long, so that different universities will be able to have different levels of fees.  The story in the Sydney Morning Herald this morning refers to an attempt by a former Labor state minister to, who I understand is a candidate at the next state election in New South Wales, and a number of other activists to call together what’s called the convocation, which is meant to be a gathering of all university graduates and staff. It was designed in the days when the university graduates and staff might of numbered a few thousand. It’s now more than a quarter of a million. So it’s a media stunt by some activists, and not surprisingly at least one of them being g a member of the Labor Party, are opposed to the Coalition’s policies.

Hammer
So you don’t take this kind of threat seriously? There at Sydney University or any other university?

Ryan
Even the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sydney has made it clear that it’s a bit of a stunt. The whole point of deregulation though is to allow this diversity, to allow universities to choose their own path, and to have different choices and more choices for Australian students when they choose their post-secondary educational pathway. Whether that be an associate diploma or an associate degree, which for the first time will have full access to the Higher Education Loan Programme, or a university degree. So that diversity you mentioned is actually a design of the system.

Hammer
Ok. Senator Scott Ryan, thanks for your time this morning.

Ryan
Thanks, Chris.

 

(Ends)