Stop the Games ‐ asylum talks must produce a result

INDEPENDENT Lyne MP Robert Oakeshott has today called on all Australians to apply maximum pressure on the major political parties to achieve a result on asylum seeker policy.
“If asylum seeker talks of the past month collapse for party political reasons, Australians will rightly be furious, and Australians will direct that fury at the two major parties who agreed to enter talks pre-Christmas, and have now failed to reach one single sensible conclusion,” Mr Oakeshott said.
“If these talks fail, the Labor Party and the Liberal Party are embarrassing their membership, their constituents and the Australian Parliament. They stand accused of putting their own political interests ahead of the nation on refugee and border protection policy.
“In an extraordinary 24 hours, we now have the Liberal Party at war with the Australian Navy as well as verging on a major dispute with 220 million Indonesians on our doorstep, and casually trampling on international law. And in this same 24 hours, we have the Labor Party stuck in their confused stalemate, perversely relying on Tony Abbott for any sort of policy ‘light on the hill’ on asylum seekers, refugees and border protection.
“This has got to stop. The Australian people need to push their local MPs and political leaders to negotiate on asylum seeker policy, for no other reason than the national interest.
“If this continues as some sort of populist face-off, international education, one of our highest earning markets, will continue to slide. And our regional co-operation work with neighbour states becomes even more difficult and, domestically, all we are doing is picking away at a populist sore that is more about the rhetoric and less about the facts on border protection or humanitarianism,” Mr Oakeshott said.
“What makes this all the more frustrating is that there already is bi-partisanship between the Liberal Party and the Labor Party on our international work on exactly the same topic. It is known as the Bali Process, and it applies internationally to exactly the same issues as the domestic dispute.
“This domestic dispute therefore compares poorly to the international bi-partisan approach to people smuggling, people trafficking and trans-national crime.
“The principles of the Bali Process are the circuit-breaker. They have both a humanitarian and law enforcement aspect, they have the full support of more than 40 countries, and they have existing bi-partisan support of both the Australian Liberal Party and the Australian
Labor Party. It is a process co-chaired by Australia and Indonesia, it contains the roadmap to best policy, and it is important work that we should be investing more in.
“My message to both major parties is no different to that of most Australians - stop the games. Look to the Bali Process for the answers and negotiate a sensible result for Australia. You directly harm our country if you don’t,” Mr Oakeshott said.
ENDS
Media Contact: Sharon Fuller - 0429 787320