Senator McKIERNAN (10:29 AM) —I am grateful that the government is in such a mess in its legislative program that we are not debating the issues of—

Senator Kemp —We're over this side, Jim, and you're over there, mate.

Senator McKIERNAN —We know it; there is no need to rub it in. But you are in a mess with your legislation. The major legislation that is on the books which has the community talking is the antiterrorist legislation. It is being talked about. It has been reviewed by the Senate Legal and Constitutional Legislation Committee, which under extreme pressure rushed in a report which was presented to one of the acting deputy presidents some weeks ago in order to prepare for the debate that was supposed to happen yesterday. The government is still not ready to bring on that debate. It is a shambles of a government, as the budget last evening was a shambles.

The shambles that the government is in allows me the opportunity to enter into another debate which is causing me concern, like the debate around the antiterrorism legislation, with the exaggerations that have taken place on that. I also want to enter into the debate on the mandatory detention of unlawful arrivals in this country, about which a number of lies and deceit have been spread, not only in recent times but over quite an extended period—and they continue to be spread. Not only is this a public debate; it is also a private debate within the Australian Labor Party. Because I have been a participant in that debate within the party—and indeed within the community—I have also borne the brunt of some quite nasty letters and emails that have been directed to me because I have extended a view.

This shambles of a government in this legislative program provides me with the opportunity to yet again put some detail on the table, to surprise some people and actually put on the table some facts surrounding the issue of mandatory detention of illegals who enter this country and are detained under the laws of Australia. I have been involved with this issue for quite a number of years, particularly since the time when I chaired the Joint Standing Committee on Migration, which conducted an inquiry into the subject and presented a report in 1994 entitled Asylum, border control and detention. I have remained involved in the issue since then, both as a member of the then government and subsequently in opposition.

I have used my time in the Senate estimates committee hearings to get some more facts and detail regarding that issue. In February of this year, during the last round of estimates committee hearings, I felt that the time had come to put some facts and figures and details on the public record. I produced a document which I am more than happy to table or incorporate if anyone wishes, because this debate has been brought on quickly. The document received some publicity in the media. It was not from me; I did not issue it as a public document. I circulated it to caucus colleagues, but some reporters around this place and in other places got hold of it and it has received some publicity. From that, attempts to discredit me and dispute the facts have come to the fore. The document is public—as far as I am concerned, it is public once a journalist has got it—and I am happy to table or incorporate it if somebody wishes me to do that.

During the estimates committee processes in February, I subjected the officers of the Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs to some detailed scrutiny about the numbers of people who are held in Australia's detention centres. I did that for a very good reason, as I thought. There is a view pervading the community, and an argument being proffered by a number of advocates, that any person who comes to Australia by boat is automatically a refugee. There is a further view in the community that is being put forward by advocates that any person held in immigration detention is a refugee. Of course, that is not the case. When a person makes a claim for protection in this country, that claim is tested against the provisions of the Migration Act, which contain aspects of the United Nations convention on refugees and the 1967 protocols that go with that. Those claims are tested against that. If a person is found to meet those standards, that person is granted protection and, after undergoing security checks and health checks, is released into the community. If they arrive without documentation, they get a temporary protection visa. If they have their documentation with them when they arrive, then, subject to them passing the test, they are entitled to be granted temporary protection in this country.

I found, to my astonishment, that at 8 February this year—we had to pick a date when we were putting questions to the department in February—in DIMIA administered detention centres, centres other than the offshore centres, there were 2,268 people in detention. Of that figure, 509 persons had not even applied for a protection visa. Many of those people would not have an entitlement to protection in this country or would not have a case to be granted asylum status. Many of them would be overstayers in the community. Indeed, some people would be of my former nationality, Irish, who had come in on a holiday visa, or perhaps a student visa or something like that, had overstayed their visa, had been picked up in the community and had not applied for a protection visa. Some 509 people who were in detention at 8 February had not even entered into the asylum stream.

I will not go through all of the figures, but they are detailed in my paper. There were 301 people who had had both the primary and the review application rejected but had proceeded on to the courts. There were 411 people held in detention at that time, 8 February, who had exhausted all avenues of protection visa applications, which included primary application, review of that through the Refugee Review Tribunal, and, in many cases, through both the Federal Court and the High Court systems, or who had not made any application at all.

All in all, those figures mean that, of the persons in immigration detention in Australia at 8 February this year, some 66 per cent, or two-thirds, had not applied for protection or had had their applications for protection in this country rejected on one or more occasions. I find those figures quite astonishing. This disproves the theory that is purported by some in our community that anyone who is in immigration detention is, in fact, a refugee. At that particular time two-thirds of the people had exhausted their avenues—if, indeed, they had applied to come in.

One of the very disturbing aspects of the debate has been a call, including from some people within my own party, to end offshore or overseas processing of applications for protection in this country. That call had been endorsed by individuals—some of whom have actually served in this parliament—and had been put out publicly by the Australian Labor Party. These people had purported to be acting in the interests of refugees, when in actual fact they were acting in completely the opposite direction and acting against the interests of refugees. Refugees come in many shapes and forms, but many of them who make application for protection in this country have relatives living in Australia who act as their sponsors. At 31 January this year there were some 44,086 applications in the pipeline to enter Australia under the offshore refugee program. Many of those people had been sponsored to come in by relatives in this country. Indeed, my electorate office in Western Australia is acting on behalf of a number of those sponsors. People talk about the refugee situation and say that there is no queue. It certainly seems to me that 44,086 is a queue.

It is important to compare that to the situation of those who have arrived in this country unlawfully and are in immigration detention in Australia. The people who arrive here unlawfully and are detained are given priority treatment in the processing of their visa applications. Their applications are treated first—over and above those persons who make application offshore and are being sponsored by relatives in this country. We found that those people who are making application from overseas to come to this country face not only a very long queue of some 44,000 but also an enormous delay in the actual processing times. If someone makes an application through the Australian embassy in Cairo, it takes 31 weeks until finalisation of that application—and these figures are for 70 per cent of the caseload, not 100 per cent—for Nairobi, it is 58 weeks or over a year from application to finalisation; 73 weeks for the embassy in Belgrade; 83 weeks from application to finalisation at the embassy in Ankara; and 103 weeks, almost two years, from application to finalisation in Islamabad. We know about this in my office because we have constituents in most of those places I have mentioned.

I am pleased to say that at least one of the state organisations from within the Australian Labor Party has dropped the demand to end offshore processing. But, when I raised the issue at a meeting in Perth, regrettably some people sought to shout me down at that meeting. But I was not surprised. I felt that I was going along to a meeting of the Australian Labor Party to discuss the development of a policy for the Australian Labor Party and I was disgusted and appalled to find that there were present at that meeting members of other political parties who have their own very strong policies in this regard. Their policy is an open door migration program— an open door for illegals.

Senator Boswell —Anyone who arrives; anyone who can get here.

Senator McKIERNAN —Anybody who can get here by whatever means. Even a proposal that came from the floor at that meeting that there ought to be some mention of condemning people-smugglers was shouted down on the floor of this meeting. We are going through very dangerous times in terms of the development of policy. So it is incumbent upon me as a representative and as a migrant to this wonderful country to do whatever I possibly can to seek to preserve the Australian migration program. When I came to this country some 33 years ago, some 200,000 people came here lawfully under that program. The program announced last week by the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs has halved that figure, though it is an increase on previous years. It is going to be 105,000 in the next few years, and we are maintaining a refugee and humanitarian program.

Australia has constantly made the proud boast of compassion for those who are in need, often quoting the fact that, of the six million persons who have arrived in this country since the Second World War, some 10 per cent, or over 600,000, have come in under the refugee and humanitarian program. It is a proud boast. It is a boast that ought to be repeated again and again. But in many cases what people fail to mention when they are quoting those figures of 10 per cent or 600,000 is that those people who have come in over the years under the refugee and humanitarian program have generally come in through the legal stream—that is, they have gone through due process and the waiting times. I would suggest that, in the vast majority of cases, the people who have been able to benefit from entry into Australia under the refugee and humanitarian program did not have the money to pay the exorbitant rates that people-smugglers are charging. In a number of cases, the people-smugglers raise a debt against the individuals when they arrive here or in other parts of the world. Although I have not shown the document to anyone in the chamber, I seek leave to table the document, so that what I have written can be seen by one and all now that there has been some publicity regarding it.

Leave granted.

Senator McKIERNAN —I thank the Senate. I want to make some concluding remarks with regard to a contribution I made last evening, as I made that under some time constraints. I referred to my recent visit to my birthplace, Ireland, and the fact that I had been received by a number of the leaders of that country, including the President and the Taoiseach—the Prime Minister—Mr Bertie Ahern. I had meant to say in my concluding remarks, but the clock beat me, that the Irish government and the parliament will go to the polls on Friday this week after the longest reign of a government in the Republic of Ireland, led by Mr Bertie Ahern. He was a member of the first ever parliamentary delegation from the Republic of Ireland to Australia some 15 years ago. He is the current Taoiseach, he is leading that government, and I would like to give my best wishes to him and to his party for the election that will be held on Friday this week.

It is currently a coalition government. The polls are predicting that there is a chance that the Fianna Fail party will win in its own right. I am not close enough to the action to add my thoughts or to put money on the result—one would not do that with the election system in Ireland, which is rather like the electoral system that we have for the Australian Senate—but there are a number of colleagues and friends who represent a number of the political parties in Ireland to whom I would give the very best wishes to continue in their political careers. It would be a joy to me personally and to my wife, Jackie, if indeed Mr Bertie Ahern was returned as Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland in the elections on Friday this week.