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

I thought the member for Stirling was the new shadow minister from immigration; it appears it is now the member for Mackellar. It is really getting better with every question.

The government’s answer to the issues facing us with asylum seekers is an international solution for an international problem; unlike the opposition, whose answer is a detention centre at Nauru and another on Christmas Island. We saw last week the real shadow minister for immigration slipping and sliding on the issue of whether 90 per cent of the people who are processed at Nauru ended up in Australia. He slipped and slid on it because it is a fact—it is the truth. Their policy is a complete fraud. We also heard about the policy of temporary protection visas, which saw the number of asylum seekers go up after its introduction. Most particularly, we heard the shadow minister’s policy of allowing visas for the first 3,750 people to arrive in Australia, creating a scramble to come to Australia.

We remain focused on the only sustainable policy, which is an international solution to an international problem.

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