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

‘So what!’ he says. The number of people went up and the member for Bowman in a brilliant interjection, which must be recorded in Hansard, says, ‘So what!’ A policy was introduced which was designed to reduce the number of people coming to Australia and it increased the number of people coming to Australia. My honourable friend, the genius from Bowman, says, ‘So what!’ What it means is that it was a failed policy and it was failed in more than one respect.

The shadow minister takes great delight in lecturing us about encouraging people to come to Australia by boat. He lectures us that domestic policies can encourage people to get on a boat and come to Australia. He would know, because the temporary protection visas encouraged women and children to get on boats and come to Australia. In 1999, 13 per cent of asylum seekers from Afghanistan and Iraq were women and children who arrived by boat and, by 2001, the two years of the protection visas had increased that to 48 per cent. Maybe the member for Bowman would say, ‘So what!’ about that, but he has gone quiet all of a sudden because not even he would say, ‘So what!’, not even the member for Cook would say, ‘So what!’, not even the Leader of the Opposition would say, ‘So what!’ because they would acknowledge—I would think—that it is a bad thing that a policy would encourage women and children to get on a boat.

Then we have stage 2 of the real action charade—and this is turning the boats around. I was very encouraged to hear the shadow minister for immigration on radio 5AA recently accept that it was a very limited set of circumstances where you could turn the boats around.

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