SUBJECT | Labor abolishing Temporary Protection Visas | 13 February 2023
GREG JENNETT: 19,000 people on Temporary Protection Visas and Safe Havens will now be able to seek permanent residency. Do you acknowledge that this is the fulfilment of a commitment and shouldn't come as any surprise to anyone?
DAN TEHAN: Well, what we want to see is full disclosure from the Prime Minister on this, as too does he have advice that this is the best course of action that the Government should be taking? Is it going to lead to the boats starting again, or isn't it? And the Prime Minister should come clean with the Australian people and say, yes, I received that advice. That advice is clear that that won't start happening, and also that when officials have gone overseas and spoken to Malaysia, to Indonesia and Sri Lanka, that the advice we got back from them as well is that it wouldn't lead to the boats starting again. What we need is full disclosure from the prime minister. Obviously, what he said before the election — and that was a big mix as well because you’ll remember when he said, no, we will get rid of protection visas-temporary protection visas, yes, we will get rid of them and then he had to clarify, he did the same with regards to offshore processing — so he was sort of a bit all over the shop. But really, what we need now is those facts. What is the advice saying about this decision?
JENNETT: OK, leaving aside advice which we don't have, what do you assert is the natural corollary that flows from this decision?
TEHAN: Well, the natural corollary is that the Prime Minister, the current prime minister, stood beside Kevin Rudd, the then prime minister, and said that these people wouldn't settle in Australia. Now here we have them changing their mind.
JENNETT: Just to be clear, we are talking about people who arrived before Operation Sovereign Borders began late or last quarter of 2013.
TEHAN: That's right. And before that, you’ll remember that during the election campaign of 2013, the then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Anthony Albanese, then deputy Prime minister he was for a short period of time, said that these people wouldn't settle in Australia. Now the problem is that all this will be being sent to the people smugglers, and they will be thinking about, okay, how are we going to test the will now of the government, the now the New Labor Government, because previously they've said this, now they're saying that. Now we won't know for a series of months — so this is an important point — we mightn’t know for a series of months as to what this leads to, but the deep concern is, is that it will get the people smugglers up and going again. And that's why that advice is so important because has the government got clear advice from their officials saying there is no risk of that happening? We must remember 1200 people drowned at sea and 8000 kids in detention — no one wants to see that again.
JENNETT: Understood. But was there any alternative? Eventually, this caseload, as they call it, 19,000 people, would have to be dealt with to remove them from legal limbo at some point. Do you acknowledge that much?
TEHAN: There was a process that was being undertaken, and people were being assessed, and where they were assessed as not being owed protection, then they were returning back to the country which they came from, where they were found to be genuine refugees then they were looking to be resettled to countries that would take them. So there was a proper process which upheld the integrity of our borders that was taking place.
JENNETT: But that’s painfully slow in relation to the 19,000 who were on mainland Australia as opposed to trying to reduce the numbers in Nauru.
TEHAN: Well, the key thing about it was it was being done with integrity, and the other aspect about it, it was being done in a way that didn't send any sort of signal that would say to the people smugglers that you can start advertising your trade again. So, the great risk about this approach is that it enables the people smugglers to start advertising again, and we probably won't know for months whether that is exactly what has happened or not. And what we need to see is that there was clear advice from the department to the government that that wouldn't be the case. And I don't know why the Prime minister — he was asked twice in Question Time today — that specific question, and he spoke about everything else except the answer that we were looking for.
JENNETT: You’re sounding like you’re almost talking up the risks of boats restarting. In making your political point, as you do here today, don't you run that very risk?
TEHAN: No. What we want to do is be very clear, very clear that no one wants to see the boats start up again. No one wants to see the 1200 people drowning at sea. No one wants to see those kids put into detention. But this is what happened the last time Labor were in government because they started dismantling Operation Sovereign Borders. So that's why we want to be clear and hear directly from the Prime Minister that he hasn't — that is — the advice he's received is that that won't happen. And he had two chances in Question Time today, the first two questions that were asked of him was show us the advice, and he wouldn't answer the question.
