Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Migration Legislation Amendment (Offshore Processing and Other Measures) Bill 2011 today because in many respects it is the culmination of years of debate around the way in which this country should tackle the asylum seeker issue. I reflect back on a debate I had some years ago with Mungo MacCallum on the Gold Coast. It will not surprise many that Mungo MacCallum and I do not see eye to eye on anything, let alone this issue. Notwithstanding that, there was a point during that breakfast debate with about 300 people in the room where Mungo MacCallum, with tears in his eyes, stood and addressed the crowd about what he referred to as barbaric—the fact that there were women and children held in detention centres in Australia. Laden with that language, he put forward a value judgment which I have heard so many times on the government benches, from Labor members, from members of the Greens and from others implying that those who stood for tough border protection policies were in some way lacking in compassion.

I have got to say that that single aspect of this entire debate is what galls me and so many members of the coalition and importantly so many members of the community. The moral elitism of so many members of the Labor Party, of the Greens and of people like Mungo MacCallum goes to the bone of those of us who take the view that we are compassionate in our approach. We fundamentally disagree with those who look down their noses at what, even then, was both Labor and Liberal policy with respect to mandatory detention, let alone offshore processing and temporary protection visas.

And so a day like today is in many respects a cathartic experience. I see the minister at the table, the Parliamentary Secretary for Infrastructure and Transport and Parliamentary Secretary for Health and Ageing, snickering about that comment. It just reinforces to me the sad reality of the situation—the sad reality that so many on the Left and Centre Left still hold the view that they have some kind of moral superiority when it comes to this debate. Well, you know what? This proves that that is not the case. This legislation validates an approach that says we do not believe it is compassionate to drive a business model that sees men, women and children paying money to people smugglers to try to get an immigration outcome by coming to Australia, because in so many respects—not all, granted, but in so many respects—that is what it has been about for many years.

The reality is that those people found to be genuine refugees were not detained. Those people found to be genuine refugees were welcomed into Australia's bosom. Those people found to be genuine refugees were, in most instances if not all, taken to be new Australians. But the flip side of that coin is that there are many for whom Australia represented a shining beacon for a fresh start away from poverty that afflicted their country, away from circumstances that they did not particularly like. Whilst I have sorrow for those people, whilst ideally you would look across the horizon and wish that every country and every person around the world enjoyed the standard of living that we enjoy in Australia, the simple reality is that it is not possible. This is why, in order to manage a program of refugee outcomes that enabled refugees to come into Australia and to make a fresh start, it needed to be ordered and why we needed to have structure to the program. Make no mistake: it was completely abandoned for one reason and one reason alone, and that was for political purposes.

The flip-flopping that has taken place over the past five years or more—

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