Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Cook had an opportunity to bring some honesty to this debate on behalf of his party. He had an opportunity to come clean on his policies, but instead we had a reprise of the election campaign—a call for real action. I am more than happy to go through the charade of real action that the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow minister present as their policy. The shadow minister put forward his plan, he called it a seven-point plan today of so-called real action. I am more than happy to go through it, point by point, with the shadow minister, with him having taken the opportunity to raise it in the House.

What a charade it is. We have, first, temporary protection visas. The shadow minister is very proud of temporary protection visas. He seems very proud of the fact that the number of people who came to Australia by boat after the introduction of temporary protection visas went up. He points to the fact that the number of boats went down, as if that was a great achievement, but singularly ignores the fact that the number of boats went up. Even more tellingly—

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