Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the Leader of the Opposition for that question. I am certain that the member for Wentworth does not thank him. I will deal with the question in detail. First of all, these are matters which are decided for operational reasons at sea. Secondly, those opposite want to have it both ways. On the one hand they say they believe in the refugee convention, and on the other they oppose it and put forward courses of action directly in conflict with it. So what we see here, yet again, is the aggressive negativity of the Leader of the Opposition, who wants to play politics with people's lives. He wants to go the biff on this issue, day after day after day. I know there are members of the front bench over there who cannot stomach this approach—it is playing with people's lives. It is a bit rich for the opposition to go down this road when they held up the consideration of establishing—

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