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

Again, the shadow minister for immigration, the member for Cook, attempts to verbal the government and me. He says that I believe that people who come to Australia on visas never commit criminal offences. I have not said that. In fact, the current regime works. Noncitizens who have been sentenced to a term of imprisonment in Australia for 12 months or more are already identified, at the rate of about 60 people of interest per month. That shows that the system works. The shadow minister needs to indicate where there has been a problem which his amendment seeks to fix. That is what he needs to do.

The shadow minister has again said that he will not call a division because he will not win the division. I have been in this House for seven years, and I can recall a number of instances where oppositions have called divisions when they did not think they could win—every division ever called in any of the previous parliaments before this one, for example, and several divisions called during this parliament.

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