Topics: Ebola, ‘Beyond the Boats: building an asylum and refugee policy for the long term’ report.
E&OE…
CALLUM DENNESS
Joining me now is Liberal Senator for Victoria, Senator Scott Ryan. Good morning.
SCOTT RYAN
Good morning.
DENNESS
Now we’re expecting the Government this morning to announce that it’s going to enable several hundred volunteers to go to Sierra Leone to help fight the Ebola virus. Can you explain the delay in reaching this decision, or why it’s taken so long?
RYAN
Well, let’s wait and see if there’s an announcement – I can only comment on the reports that I’ve seen in this morning’s press, and they allude to the fact that there will be an announcement. But they also reinforce the point that the Prime Minister has previously made, which was that we needed to ensure that we were in a position to treat any Australian volunteers or workers that became infected with the virus. And the newspaper report this morning outlines an apparent agreement to that effect.
DENNESS
But I mean this caution that the Government showed in sending volunteers is understandable, but then on the other hand we’re sending personnel to fight what the Prime Minister has described as a “death cult”. Doesn’t that seem a little inconsistent?
RYAN
Well, no, it’s actually entirely consistent. There are long-standing arrangements for the treatment of defence force personnel and the evacuation and treatment of them if they are injured. And let’s also put what we’re doing in Iraq in context – our ground forces are only there in an advisory capacity, and we have an Air Force and support staff there. But there are agreements in place to ensure people injured or needing medical treatment actually have access to that, and the Prime Minister had always made clear that we didn’t have the capacity to evacuate someone home from west Africa if they became infected with the Ebola virus. And we didn’t have the necessary agreements in place to ensure that Australians who were trying to help, but who did become infected, did have access to the medical treatment they needed to maybe save their life.
DENNESS
We heard during Senate Estimates that the UK and US had requested Australia to send personnel. Can we be sure that on this issue Australia has been pulling its weight in the international community?
RYAN
Well, there was always this one hurdle of ensuring that Australians who needed medical treatment could have access to it. That’s a long-standing arrangement for our defence force personnel, and the newspaper reports this morning allude to an agreement being struck to ensure that. And let’s also put in context that Australia was one of the earliest nations to make a commitment of just under $20 million, which the World Health Organisation said was exactly the sort of commitment they were looking for at that time.
DENNESS
So do you think Labor has been playing politics on this issue?
RYAN
Look, I’ll let other people make a judgement. The point that the Government has made is that if we’re going to put people in harm’s way – in this case in a medical sense – through treating quite a virulent outbreak of a deadly virus, we wanted to make sure that Australians would have access to medical treatment.
DENNESS
Okay, let’s move on. There’s a report being released today, which acknowledges the success of the Government in stopping the boats, but identifies long-term challenges to our immigration policy. One of the challenges it has identified is that this issue has become really quite politicised. Do you think that’s a fair point?
RYAN
Well, I’ve only seen, again, the [media] reports because the full report hasn’t been released. But stopping the boats is actually also a long-term challenge. We’ve seen the consequences of what happens before when we didn’t have a flood of illegal arrivals, policies were changed, we saw tens of thousands of people illegally arrive on Australian shores, thousands of boats, we’ve gone from virtually no people in detention to thousands of people in detention, so I would suggest that maintaining border security and stopping unlawful immigration arrivals is actually a long-term challenge. It is not something that we can say ‘we’ve done, we’re finished, let’s move on’. It’s a day-by-day, month-by-month, year-by-year challenge.
DENNESS
Sure, but Immigration Minister Scott Morrison himself has talked about the humanitarian dividend you get when the boats stop and the boats appear to, if not have completely stopped, then slowed down dramatically. Is it now the time to talk about long-term challenges – other challenges we face – such as lifting the humanitarian intake, for instance, which is another point identified by this report?
RYAN
Well, there’s already been an effective lift in our humanitarian intake by actually making sure that Australia can choose people from all parts of the world, many of whom have been living in refugee camps for many years. And the humanitarian dividend that the Minister talked about is there because we’re actually being able to choose who comes to Australia, rather than have people self-select. The point I make, though, about stopping the boats is it is important to remember we can’t just say ‘well the boats have stopped, let’s move on,’ we have to maintain the policies in place that prevent illegal immigration and people smuggling.
Now, that does lead to a humanitarian dividend, as the Minister said. We’re doing that by taking people from some of the most appalling refugee camps all around the world. So the politicisation, as you describe it, of this issue came about because the policies that worked were unwound by Labor. And until Labor actually agrees to reinstitute those policies, including Temporary Protection Visas, then I’m afraid there’s going to be a political debate on this. We know the policies that worked – they were in place. We’ve reinstituted most of them, but we need the full suite of them to ensure that the illegal migration outcomes don’t start up again.
DENNESS
A Labor MP that we just interviewed, Pat Conroy, said that the Immigration Minister is politicising this issue for political gain. What’s your response to that comment?
RYAN
Well, Labor have an easy way to ensure that these policies become, once again, part of a settled immigration policy, and that’s to sign up to the policies that they basically said they were going to live by in 2007 before they unwound them. We know that when we don’t have strong border protection policies we get tens of thousands of people, and thousands of boats. That’s no longer a theory, it’s no longer debated by academics, it’s what happened in Australia under the Labor Party. Now if Labor want to support the Temporary Protection Visas that we know will add to our suite of policies, then the political heat may well be taken out of this. But they won’t, and they can’t, because they won’t admit their own failure.
DENNESS
Do you think that lifting the humanitarian intake – it’s currently at just north of 13,500, previous reports have called for it to be lifted to as high as 27,000 – do you think that’s a worthy goal to have to lift that number?
RYAN
Well, I think we need to be careful about a couple of things here. Firstly, when we take refugees and resettle them in Australia, we provide them with a very substantial suite of services, as we should, because they can often be coming from very difficult circumstances having lived in refugee camps, in some cases for decades. It’s not simply give them a visa and say ‘make your way in the Australian community’. Now that has a substantial expense involved, as it should, because it’s a very important part of our humanitarian programme. It’s not just about lifting the number of visas, so both the cost of lifting those services and the capacity to lift those services are both in question. So while some people may talk about it, I think we need to make sure that the 13,750 we take now, that we provide all the services that group needs to resettle as easily as possible into the Australian community.
DENNESS
Okay, Senator Scott Ryan, thanks for your time.
RYAN
Cheers, thanks very much.
(Ends)