Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration) Share this | Hansard source

the sole reason is primarily to ensure, solely to ensure, that they have the opportunity to appreciate the Australian way of life. I want to know what is magic about the number four in that reason, because it has not come out as a result of the discussion paper he has issued. Submissions to that have not even closed, yet the parliamentary secretary has arrived at the magic number four. Other than the formula of government equals Labor plus one, I cannot understand how they get there. But I can understand why Labor will not accept it. For the parliamentary secretary, that might be the most important reason in the world, and in public policy, yes, it is an important reason. But I tell you: national security ranks higher. National security reasons will always rank higher.

When COAG dealt with this issue they did not simply decide that we needed to increase the waiting time for citizenship. They actually had to deal with an issue of balance. The citizenship delay period is an important issue of balance, because you are balancing two very serious competing considerations. You want to make sure you do not integrate into society people who you do not want to integrate—people to whom you want to say, ‘This is not the country for you,’ and occasionally that does happen. You also want to make sure you do not alienate people and create a self-fulfilling prophecy.

COAG made that decision faced with the best intelligence that was available to them in the direct aftermath of the London bombings. When they made the call to have three years, we were willing to run with it for that reason. But let us not pretend that they decided that any increase was what they wanted. No, they agreed to three. It was part of a 10-point plan on national security. Simply wanting to trump Labor with a formula is lousy public policy. You do not do that with national security decisions. Labor cannot support that and will be voting against the amendment.

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