Laurie Ferguson (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

As noted by earlier speakers, the Migration Legislation Amendment (Student Visas) Bill 2012 essentially results from the Knight review, the 41 recommendations made therein and, more particularly, the analysis that the current compulsory notification of breaches by students with regard to attendance and progress in courses, in conjunction with automatic cancellation of visas, meant that there was a significant backlog of cases. The member for Canning talked of 250,000 that had not been finalised. It led to a situation where it gave enormous power to some providers who in a number of cases, it is claimed, used it as a disciplinary procedure against students who might have criticised course content or college performance. This essentially led to a situation where some people who might have been better helped by counselling and other assistance were cancelled. That inquiry received 200 submissions and its report with its 41 recommendations was released on 22 September 2011.

Australia has produced a few political charlatans. Jock Garden, who started on the Bolshevik council of world revolution and eventually forged Eddie Ward's signatures in his ministerial office, finished up by producing Zodiac magazines on horse tipping. TJ Ley started off going to different Protestant denominations each Sunday for political purposes and finished up in Broadmoor's mental asylum after murdering six people.

But the member for Canning's performance today indicates he is a bullet performer as a charlatan in regard to debates. First he came in here complaining about the time it had taken the government to respond to this report and then he—

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