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

As to the Leader of the Opposition's question, the government has endorsed in principle the recommendations of this report here, a report put together by three very eminent Australians—Angus Houston, a former Chief of the Defence Force; Michael L'Estrange, a foreign policy expert; and Paris Aristotle, an expert in refugee and asylum seeker issues. It is this that has guided the government and I want to take this opportunity to thank those three eminent Australians for their work. Yesterday of course we saw people, out on the politics, claiming what the scoreboard was out of this report. The truth is that for every political party in this parliament, including the government and including the opposition, aspects of this report endorse parts of their policy and aspects of this report reject parts of their policy. That is the truth of this report. I say it frankly about the things that the government has advocated. It is also true about the things that the opposition has advocated.

That is the conclusion of Angus Houston's panel and its work. I think it is incumbent upon us now to put aside those political scoreboards and that point-making, to put aside the shouting and the rhetoric that has characterised this debate, and to actually get on with the job of enacting the recommendations of this report. So the government will later today introduce amendments to the legislation already on the Notice Paper, the government's bill, to amend asylum seeker and refugee law. We have had this morning good faith discussions—

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