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

At the end of the day what we are seeking to achieve with these amendments, despite all of this contradiction about the clear history, is a circumstance where the government of the day has the ability to put offshore processing beyond legal doubt. We have provided amendments because I believe Australians are looking to us to find some common ground and to act in good faith so that we as a nation can put this issue behind us and have legal certainty. I do genuinely believe that. The reason we provided the amendments today was that we believe the Australian people are looking to us to go beyond politics as usual. I hope that in considering these amendments, which are in the national interest, we can find the common ground in this parliament which enables us to go beyond politics as usual and to put offshore processing beyond doubt.

I cannot forecast every permutation and combination of governments to come, but it may be that a government in the future wants to do exactly what the Howard government did when it had processing on Nauru in exactly the same circumstances—a non-refugee convention signatory country and a memorandum of understanding. I ask those opposite: why would they want to deny a future government the power they sought for themselves and used themselves when they were in government?

See this speech in context