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

To the Leader of the Opposition, he has misconstrued the point I was making in my last answer. He was asking me about a clause in the amendments that he has been provided with, and that clause was about assurances being gained between two countries which were not legally binding. That was his question to me. So I took his question to me to be: why would you want that in there; when would you use it?

The government is seeking to use that clause with Malaysia. But I was pointing out to the Leader of the Opposition for policy consistency that it is the kind of clause that would have been necessary for the Howard government when it entered into its arrangement with Nauru had the High Court taken the same interpretation then that it takes now. When the Howard government entered into its arrangement with Nauru, Nauru was not a refugee convention signatory country. That is a fact. No shaking of anybody's head will wish that fact away. When the Howard government entered into the arrangement with Nauru, it was not a legislated arrangement in Australia or in Nauru. There was a memorandum of understanding between the two nations which spelt out obligations on each side—that is, it is a comparable situation. It was not the end point because it was for processing rather than for transfers. But, on those points, it is a comparable situation to where we are with Malaysia. It is not a refugee convention signatory country but we do have an arrangement with it which spells out obligations. That was the point of my last answer.

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