Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Hansard source

I second the motion, Mr Speaker. Today we learned that the government will not have the confidence of this House for their failed asylum and border protection policies. And what we have learned as the day has progressed is that this government does not even have confidence in itself to be able to bring its bill forward and allow it to be voted on today in this place. This is not terribly surprising because the Australian people lost confidence in this government a long time ago—and not only on this issue but on all of the issues we have seen come before this place, most significantly demonstrated yesterday as they patted themselves on the back as they introduced the world's largest carbon tax on the Australian people.

The only people who have confidence in the government's border protection policies are the people smugglers. They say they want to smash the people smugglers' business model. What they need to understand is they are the people smugglers' business model, and what they have put forward in this place over four years has underwritten that business model. Tens of millions of dollars have gone into the pockets of people smugglers as people have paraded themselves onto boats and put their lives at risk.

It is necessary to suspend standing orders here today to bring on the Migration Act amendment bill to give the government the opportunity to restore some credibility by supporting the coalition's amendments to the act to restore what they abolished. More than three years ago the government abolished offshore processing—that is what they did: abolished offshore processing. They abolished temporary protection visas. They abolished their own Prime Minister's pre-election promise in 2007 that he would turn boats around. The only person who has been processed offshore by this government is the former Prime Minister: the Minister for Foreign Affairs. And as the Minister for Foreign Affairs spends his time at the front of the plane reading Lazarus Rising, as we learned in this place this week, what we have also learned is that this government has absolutely no policy whatsoever when it comes to this area.

Offshore processing did not end with the decision of the High Court. It ended with the decision of this government back in 2008. Since then we have seen failure after failure from this government. What we have seen, as the Leader of the Opposition said, as they embarked on their 'anything but Nauru' strategy for the last four years is the Oceanic Viking debacle. We have seen with the failed asylum freeze that its only purpose and end, it would seem, was to produce another 12,000 people coming on boats from Afghanistan. We have seen the East Timor farce as regional leaders had to endure an endless polite conversation, listening to a Prime Minister talk about a policy she knew would never happen and that this government never believed in.

What we see from the government now is them coming into this place and seeking a blank cheque from this parliament for more failures. Well, we have got a tip for the government, and that is they should put back in place what they abolished. They have the opportunity to do that this afternoon by bringing on the Migration Act amendment bill and adopting the amendments that the coalition has put forward that would enable them to do this.

The price of their failure has been chaos, cost blow-outs and tragedy. Those failures should hang heavily on the heads of every single member on that side of the House. Those who encouraged the government to abolish the policies of the Howard government must now take responsibility for the cost, for the chaos and for the tragedy that we have seen occur as a result of their failures.

The coalition offers this government an alternative that deals with the issues that came up in the High Court to ensure that the protections that the member for Berowra put into that act in 2001 can be sustained. We can achieve that by ensuring signatory to the convention is a litmus test on those protections and we can create the legal certainty that is necessary. If the government does not bring this bill in this afternoon I think it is time to the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship to improve his quality of life. I think it is time for this minister, who does not enjoy confidence of this House, to do the honourable thing unless he brings this bill, which he has sponsored, into the House. He brought it into this place and he should now face the test of this place on his own bill, or he should do the honourable thing—and improve his quality of life, as he has so often said—and resign from his office. But that will only allow another to come and put more failed policy in place. Bring on the bill. (Time expired)

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