Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

But here's the thing—I hear the interjections and I am reasonably gracious towards the former Prime Minister—and here is the difference. He had a parliamentary majority, he had an opposition that actually supported him—just like Mick Young and Ian Macphee. But what do we have today? An opposition that puts its own dark partisan interest ahead. They come in here with all this talk about national security and they talk about matters they frankly know nothing about. They are at a dangerous level of ignorance, and ignorance is what we heard from the member for Dawson. We hear this dark partisanship repeated over and over again at this point. We had the member for Stirling come in here and give us a lecture about national security. Last year, in the debate over the Malaysian transfer agreement, he blubbered; he had tears up there at the dispatch box. That is what we had from Joe Hockey, the shadow Treasurer. Now we get this lecture. You cannot have it both ways. You cannot come in here last year and frustrate the government's ability to act by voting with the Greens party in a sickening marriage of convenience—after all the lectures about how the Greens party are evil they came in here and voted with them—and then, a mere eight months later, roll in here with this sort of dark partisanship. It is reminiscent of the reds under the bed. Oh, they're coming to get you!

I will be quite plain with the House. I do not want people arriving by boat to this country. I will be quite plain that zero would be the primary number that I would like, so zero people arriving. I am not against refugees coming to this country and settling appropriately if they are good citizens and if they are good Australians. That is what we have been doing since the fifties. But what I am against is people taking a dangerous journey, a journey that endangers their lives and the lives of ADF personnel and Customs officials. I am against that because frankly we get these issues. That is why I pushed in my party for a long time for mechanisms like the Malaysian transfer agreement. That is why it was so galling and stunning to come into this House and see the Liberal Party, who beat their chests relentlessly about this, go over there and vote with the Greens and frustrate the government's ability to act.

The truth is we will never know what effect the Malaysian transfer agreement might have had. It might have prevented the sorts of arrivals that we had. It might have prevented the 6,000 Sri Lankans who decided to try and come here by boat, of which 1,100 or so have been removed back to Sri Lanka by the government, so sent back home. We do not know what effect the Malaysian transfer agreement might have had. It might have had the effect of dissuading people from making irregular maritime arrivals. I think it is a great misfortune for this country that not only did the opposition vote against it but they have trashed this option by trashing the Malaysian government in the process in their vindictive dark partisanship—

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