Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the shadow minister for her question. I presume that at the bottom of all of this is the opposition’s view that it is going to land a major political blow if somehow it can suggest it agrees with me. It is a very unusual thing for an opposition to seek to get political advantage by agreeing with the Deputy Prime Minister of the alternative political party and the government. But such is the convoluted logic the opposition has got itself into in these desperate days. I thank the shadow minister for watching the Laurie Oakes interview on Sunday. I am sure he is very grateful for her coming up in the viewer attendance numbers as well.

I say to the shadow minister that one of the things that have been debated during this nation’s various debates about asylum seeking and refugees is how you deal with the push factors that get people on the move and what one should do in relation to domestic policy settings. I say to the shadow minister—and I take her again to some inconvenient facts for her but things I think she should be recognising in this debate—that statistics from the UNHCR about the number of people on the move and the number of people looking for asylum—

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