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

We are discussing a matter of national interest and I presume all members of the House would be interested in this discussion. I may be wrong about that, but I will assume that all members of this House have an interest in securing Australia's borders and in the best possible policy in relation to refugees and asylum seekers.

In response to the question of the Leader of the Opposition, I was asked by the member for Macquarie about whether we had an arrangement for 800 or whether we had extended it. I confirmed it was an arrangement for 800. I then went on to explain what I believed to be the merits of that agreement—that we had the best possible advice that the Malaysia agreement provided the best possible deterrence. I did not put that specifically about the figure and that is what the Leader of the Opposition has either misheard, misconstrued or is seeking to misrepresent. The Leader of the Opposition knows from the briefings he has received that the advice to us from the Secretary of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship and more broadly is that they believe the Malaysia arrangement has the maximum deterrence.

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