Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

But you did not do anything. For all their talk now, they say they have been consistent, but it is not true. They and the rest of the country, to be fair—we did this together, but events have since proved that we have to take a different approach.

The Liberals, Tony Abbott and all the backbench, have been going on like a broken record about stopping the boats. They have been talking tough, demanding government action. I have never heard them talk about the UN before—never. I have never heard them talk about humanitarian concerns. And now, on the grounds of compassion and the UN fiat and officialdom, they say they are going to oppose offshore processing. There was an interview with Bob Brown on Meet the Press on 18 September and he said:

What happens if Tony Abbott votes down the Gillard position and we will be, you end up by default with Tony Abbott supporting the Greens position, now that's where this country should be. The majority of people should want that—wrong motive, right outcome.

So we will have the Liberal Party basically endorsing the minority position. That is what Bob Brown says; that is where he sees this going. He is only too happy for the Liberal Party to block this amendment bill.

It is a very dangerous position for the opposition to take, given their rhetoric of 'stop the boats, stop the boats, stop the boats'. And, given their rhetoric about the Greens, they now propose to join an unholy alliance with them, just as they did around carbon trading in the last parliament, defeating sensible action on climate change through the emissions trading system. It was not that different—and I note the member for Wentworth was interviewed on Lateline the other night—from what we are debating in the parliament today. The systems were broadly the same but an unholy alliance of the Liberals and the Greens blocked action on climate change. Now they are blocking offshore processing and preventing an effective deterrent against taking a dangerous boat journey.

I do not think the Australian people are going to be terribly impressed when they see Abbott and Bandt, after all this rhetoric, voting together in the House of Representatives. And I do not think they are going to be very impressed when they see Brandis and Bob Brown together in the Senate, and it will be more than one vote, voting together to end offshore processing. The dangers are pretty apparent, given the Christmas Island tragedy. This is not an issue that you can delay on or play politics with. It is not an issue that you can afford some partisanship on. It is an issue of critical importance. It is an issue of life and death.

The one thing the member for Mayo said that was right was that this has been a difficult journey for the Labor Party. We have agonised over it; we have agonised over the debate. It was a tough debate to have, but we are not playing politics with it. Frankly, it would be easier to do what the Greens want to do and it would be easier to do what the Liberals want to do. There is just one problem: neither of those policy outcomes will work. They are high on emotive political appeal. They are not practical, though; they just will not work and they will be counterproductive.

Perhaps the Liberal Party should pay some heed not to me but to Bill Hassell, who is a former Western Australia state leader of the Liberal Party. He said in an opinion piece in the West Australian today:

This would not prevent the Opposition from expressing reservations, exposing the deficiencies of the plan and putting forward an alternative solution.

He proposes that the bill should be passed. As he says, that will not stop those opposite criticising. He goes on to say:

The Australian public will not thank the Opposition for more boats and onshore processing, the inevitable outcome of their unholy alliance with the Greens.

That is what conservatives are saying. The former leader of the Western Australian Liberals is saying that it is an unholy alliance, that it will not be welcomed by the Australian people. That is true.

The Liberals' position is fundamentally inconsistent. They claim now that the UN convention is all the reassurance that one needs, and yet they never used it in government. Their speeches are full of cant and politics and humbug, and the speech of the member for Melbourne was full of the same—emotive appeals aiming at getting votes. One party, the Greens, is aiming at the inner city, and the other, the Liberal Party, is aiming at the outer suburbs.

We in the Labor Party, however difficult and agonising this debate is, are determined to do the right thing because these are life and death issues. They are issues which tug at the heart, but we are determined to do the right thing. This amendment bill serves that purpose.

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