Senator HARRIS (5:19 PM) —I rise to speak on the Migration Amendment (Excision from Migration Zone) Bill 2001 and six other related bills. These bills are about protecting Australia's shores from being entered illegally. A clear message must be sent to countries from which illegal boat people leave that Australia is no longer an easy target and that unauthorised arrival on Australian shores is not a quick passport to a permanent visa. Australia must take a firm stand. We must not have people arriving in this country without the relevant visas and documentation. I believe it is necessary to have excised specific offshore places such as Christmas Island, the territories of Ashmore, Cartier and Cocos Island and the relevant Australian sea and resource installations. This has to happen as quickly as possible, and to that extent Pauline Hanson's One Nation supports the legislation.

Coming ashore at these places should not automatically ensure illegal entrants the right to queue jump ahead of those people who have waited their turn and who have entered through the correct channels. By excising these territories, Australia puts in place a migration zone which does not in any way, shape or form impact on the rights of those Australian citizens or residents in the areas to be excised for the purposes of migration. This zone effectively puts a stop to illegal boat people applying for a visa while they remain within the migration zone. An illegal entrant into the migration zone who does not hold a valid visa is an unlawful citizen.

It is necessary to take a very firm stand with regard to the people smugglers to deter them from accepting people as cargo and putting people's lives at risk in unseaworthy vessels. These vessels generally do not have clearance to leave their ports to come legally to Australia. They are also generally devoid of the necessary safety items. The Australian government must continue to work with the Indonesian government to disrupt the people smugglers.

The money collected by the people smugglers is a huge injection into the black economy of Indonesia and, while the Indonesian government may want to curtail it, the people facilitating this smuggling obviously have no intent to comply. We must deal severely with those who knowingly break Australian laws by bringing in illegal boat people. People who commit this offence deserve a lengthy sentence of imprisonment—at least 10 years for the first and only offence. Ten years must mean exactly that—10 years of imprisonment. These people smugglers must not be given a second chance; they must not be given the chance to re-offend.

The Australian Defence Force or a Commonwealth officer must be given the power to search certain ships or aircraft suspected of carrying illegal entrants. These people may be searched without a warrant, without undue force or being subjected to indignity. An officer of the same sex as the person being searched must carry out a search. Weapons or objects capable of inflicting bodily injury that are identified during these searches must be taken into possession and confiscated. The Australian Defence Force must have the power to turn the boat people back to the port of departure, whether they are within or outside Australia's territorial boarders.

The Australian Defence Force must be able to, with discretion—as opposed to a mandatory duty—detain a person who is seeking to enter an excised offshore place. They must have the power to remove or place illegal entrants on ships or aircraft and, if necessary, restrain those persons with such force as is considered reasonable providing that human rights standards are met. The Commonwealth must have the power to protect the borders of Australia by ejecting persons if an officer or a member of the Australian Defence Force or a person authorised by the minister reasonably suspects that a person is seeking to enter an excised offshore place and is an unlawful illegal entrant.

This group of seven migration bills is unprecedented in that these bills give the executive government absolute, unfettered powers. They also, to some degree, create a legal fiction about our borders. Our territorial waters are clearly defined; they are as specified by legislation or regulation. Previously, the protection of Australia's territorial waters has been achieved by Australia enforcing its sovereignty over these territorial waters, and that right of the Australian government must continue. As an example, we need only look at the area between America and Cuba, where the American government continues to enforce its sovereignty over its territorial waters in those areas. Professor Amien Rais of the Australian National University, a leading Muslim and chairman of Indonesia's People's Consultative Assembly, is referred to in an article in the Canberra Times of Thursday 20 September entitled `Refugee policy could lead to friction with Indonesia'. That article states:

The important section of the article that I would like to highlight reads:

The situation regarding illegal boat people will not be resolved unless Australia as a nation addresses the root of the problem. This involves exacting swift and forceful removal of the Taliban, who exist only as a name and not as a religious order. Their vile torture and deprivation of their own people clearly portrays that they have no resemblance to a religious order. Murder by the Taliban has no place in the holy book. The Taliban's intention is to get a temporal power and influence through hate, fear and intimidation, not through the words of God. The world's nations need to be absolutely ruthless in extracting retribution against these zealots. Another root cause of this situation is the fertile soil of our failed global economics. This gives rise to unrest in these suppressed countries, subject to domination by the World Bank or the IMF.

We only have to look at East Timor to see some of the problems that are arising in that region. The East Timorese have been told in no uncertain terms that, in order to qualify for assistance from the IMF for the reconstruction of devastated East Timor, they must capitulate and buy rice from Vietnam. They are not permitted to grow it themselves. In this most extraordinary situation, the obvious questions were asked of the International Monetary Fund by the East Timorese: what if no boats arrive from Vietnam with rice? How will we feed our people? Can we purchase rice from Australia? The answer to that one was very quick—`No; the IMF will provide it from South-East Asia.' So we see clear manipulation of the supply of produce between these countries and the weapon, to ensure compliance with those demands, is the withholding of IMF funding for non-compliance.

Australia should not be using its armed forces to transport illegal boat people. I clarify that by saying that there are more economic ways to move people. Our Navy has a far more important function and that is protection of our borders. It is paramount that the illegal boat people be removed from the Manoora immediately and the Manoora returned to active duty in Western Australian waters.

Australia's singling out of these recent arrivals has inherent dangers. That is, that these ad hoc bills introduce a further centralisation of power to the executive government with no right of redress for a subsequent government other than to repeal or amend the bills at a later date. It is paramount for Australia's long term environmental, economic and fiscal survival that the unrelenting flow of illegal boat people be stemmed due to the drain on Australia's financial ability to assess their refugee status, and to provide housing, food, clothing, medication and welfare for those people. The answer lies in addressing the root causes within countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan and elsewhere. These sorely oppressed people deserve the empathy of the developed nations. We would be derelict in our Christian duty if we fail to support these people and continually criticise rather than providing practical solutions. We are meddling in an area involving complex religious and economic issues—that Australians have no comprehension of—where the political players have aspirations. Meddling in such an area is fraught with danger.