Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I was just passing my good wishes again to the member for Murray and welcoming her contribution to the debate. Mr Speaker, the member for Murray points to numbers. In this place, for the last week or so that this debate has been going on, I have said repeatedly that in the period of the Howard government, nearly 250 boats arrived in Australia carrying nearly 15,000 boat people. Can I say to those opposite: I have not heard anyone so far dispute any element of the accuracy of those numbers. So the member for Murray can slice and dice data as she so chooses; they are the facts. The second fact is this: in the period we have been in government, there have been around 40 boats that have arrived in this country with about 1,700 to 1,800 individuals. That is over a period of about two years. The Howard government was in office for about 12 years, with nearly 15,000 people on 250 boats.

But what is this really about? It is about the Liberal Party deciding to play the asylum-seeker card because they see it is full of good politics for them. Whatever happened to the member for Wentworth campaigning in the seat of Wentworth on the Liberal-progressive side of the party? Gone, gone, gone—a million—as he is now seeking to pitch his message to the right wing of the party, where he hopes to save his leadership. He is saying to the right wing of the party, ‘I hear your pain on asylum seekers.’ I could ask, why doesn’t he instead reserve his venom for those vile individuals who are people smugglers, rather than to mete it upon the victims of people smugglers, the asylum seekers themselves.

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