Laurie Ferguson (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

We have heard some grandiose language from those opposite today, from the member for Curtin and the member for Cook. We have heard phrases such as the 'dead end of policy failure', 'gross incompetence' et cetera. We have heard since the High Court decision comments by the self-styled and self-opinionated shadow Attorney-General about Nauru. For all of the opposition's criticisms leading up to the High Court decision, I do not recall the shadow Attorney-General pontificating that it would fail legally. I do not recall them saying that they knew the law, that they had expertise in that area and that it would fail on those grounds.

We did have the member for Cook parading around with a video outside some purported camps in Malaysia. This is the same man who in a Lowy Institute speech on 30 November 2010 put an alternative about Australian immigration. He talked of sending people back to Iran. I am not here today to defend Malaysia. It is, however, a democracy by any standards. It is a multicultural society. It is a former member of the Commonwealth and has some nuances of its court systems. We saw that a former minister who was victimised at least had some legal rights. We see these people parading around saying how dreadful it would be that people go back to Malaysia.

Obviously this government negotiated with Malaysia to ensure some protection for the people who were being sent back, but on 30 November last year the shadow minister for immigration, the member for Cook, said to the Lowy Institute that he would send people back to Iran and Pakistan—that he would have a 'returns policy'. They have the effrontery today to say that Malaysia was the end of Western civilisation. I think the kinds of associations we have with Malaysia, for all its faults, are such that they would lead us to say that it is a preferable policy to that which he put forward. They talk about dead ends of policy, but I wonder where we would be if he had had the chance to operate those kinds of policies back then.

We also had them come in here today with crocodile tears about people drowning at sea, about people who are self-harming and about people who are rioting. Somehow they have forgotten about Cornelia Rau and they have forgotten about Solon; they have forgotten about the millions of dollars the Australian taxpayer has had to fork out for those kinds of failures in detention. They are ignoring, as they well know, the kinds of reforms that were instituted at the beginning of the new government in relation to what happens in detention. The problems we still have in maintaining conditions there because of the numbers arriving are not easy for Labor or Liberal governments, but, as they well know, the kinds of protections that have been brought in since the change of government are very significant. Another point I would turn to is this disgust at the dismantlement of their policies. They think everything has collapsed because we got rid of temporary protection visas and Nauru.

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