Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

This is a distraction in order to delay the matter of public importance that has been selected by you, Mr Speaker, to be debated before this House—that is, the matter of public importance moved by the member for Chifley in the following terms:

The urgent need for leadership to re-affirm our commitment to a non-discriminatory immigration policy for Australia’s future.

This is desperation from the Leader of the Opposition. It is very interesting that he could not actually pick any of his factional mates to do this; he had to pick the shadow Treasurer and the member for Dunkley to do this—two people who have, I think, a very proud record on issues relating to migration and who are prepared to stand up within their party against the extremists who would press buttons in order to seek political advantage. Today, on the doors, the member for Gippsland said:

You’d have to suggest that what the polls are saying to us is we have to get our act together. That is a clear message to us in the coalition. We’ve had a bad couple of weeks. There’s no point gilding the lily on that point.

Indeed, they have had a shocker of a couple of weeks! The backbencher, the member for Gippsland, went on to say:

There’s a message there to the traitors in the ranks. There’s people in our ranks who think they can climb over the corpses of their colleagues to get themselves further ahead in their political careers …

They had a crisis in the party room this morning. They had a crisis over the member for Cook’s private member’s motion that came before the parliament last night. He moved a motion to cap the number of visas given to asylum seekers who arrive by boat. He was taken on in the party room this morning by Judi Moylan, who broke ranks to challenge the member for Cook’s motion and called for an end to the historical rhetoric over the issue of refugees.

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