Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question. What I would say to the Leader of the Opposition is that I am well aware that he and his spokesperson, the shadow minister, have been out playing politics on this. We all know, of course, that they are not interested in the policy, because, if they were interested in the policy, presumably they would be supporting an inquiry that looked at not only detention now but also detention under the Howard government and that looked at, for example, the breakout from Woomera. Do we remember that? Perhaps it could look at the incarceration of an Australian, Cornelia Rau. Do we remember that? Perhaps it could even traverse the children overboard affair and the deliberate misleading of the Australian people at an election.

As the Leader of the Opposition well knows, the government has been very transparent about circumstances in detention centres. What I would say to the Leader of the Opposition is: before he throws around words, he ought to acknowledge, for example, that incidents are of course catalogued and they can range from something like a very simple health complaint by an asylum seeker through to something more serious.

In relation to incidents in detention centres, the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship has ordered inquiries. They are publicly known, and the opposition has the opportunity in Senate estimates to ask any questions that it genuinely has on the policy. But what I would say to the Leader of the Opposition is that at some point he has to work out whether he is only interested in the politics of this or whether he is interested in the policy. If he is genuinely interested in the policy, he may want to let us know. But, as we know from characterisations by senior members of his own frontbench, policy is not his strong suit.

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