Michael Hatton (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am glad to follow the other members who have spoken on the Migration Legislation Amendment (Information and Other Measures) Bill 2007 and, indeed, to endorse the sentiment of the member for McMillan, who has just spoken, about how Australia was built, particularly during the postwar period, by migrant communities. Some of that has been celebrated in recent magnificent films. This legislation is technical, but it also tells a story about this government and our bureaucracies, which have great difficulty determining the difference between privacy law and the Privacy Act and how to deal with certain documents, photographs, iris scans and a whole series of other identifying processes and procedures.

This legislation was initiated in 2004, when a series of changes was introduced regarding disclosure of information and privacy in the immigration area, and 2½ years later we have this amending bill. Day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year for the past 2½ years it has been demonstrated that the measures introduced in 2004 are unworkable. If they were unworkable in 2004, they are unworkable in 2007 and have been unworkable in the intervening years.

A government that was on its game, a government that was not tired, flaccid and weak in its approach, would have been able to rev up the department and say, ‘If there’s a fundamental problem here and if this is so unworkable then fix it and fix it now.’ But that has not happened. Over 2½ years the department has attempted to trawl about in the privacy area and get so embroiled in the technicalities of this legislation that it has not been able to do anything.

It is apparent that prosecutions for drug and fishing offences have not been able to progress properly in the past 2½ years and people have not been brought to justice because this government is tired and old and is not in a position to take its responsibilities seriously enough to fix the problems. It is tired, it is old and its mind is not on the job. It has been 2½ years, Prime Minister. Your ministers had a chance to fix the problem with the bill introduced 2½ years ago. It is only now that this technical bill has been introduced into the House. It is only now that some corrective measures have been taken. When this bill is passed here and in the other place, drug and fisheries prosecutions will be able to go forward. So, while it is technical, this bill tells the story of a tired government, an old government and a government that cannot concentrate on the job at hand or prosecute the legislation that it introduced.

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