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

Yes, short-termism. So they trashed the Malaysian transfer agreement and the option to do transfer agreements with other countries. They trashed that option and trashed a key part of the Bali process. Then what did they do with the expert panel? I can tell you what they did with the expert panel. They said from the outset of the expert panel, 'Well, the expert panel can do what it likes but we'll ignore it. We've got our own solution.' That brings me to their own solution. The minister alluded to this, that they have got one big promise—'We're going to stop the boats. We're going to turn back the boats.'—but I can tell you that this is a very, very dangerous high-risk policy. We had an un-named Navy officer quoted in the Australian on 23 January 2012 saying:

"They'll see us and they'll burn their boats," … "They'll do that to stop us repairing them."

Then we had Vice-Admiral Ray Griggs, the head of the Navy, in Senate estimates—a serious forum—saying:

… there were incidents during these activities, as there have been incidents subsequently, which have been risky. There have been fires lit, there have been attempts to storm the engine compartment of these boats, there have been people jumping in the water and that sort of thing … yes, there are obviously risks involved in this process.

That is a terrible, terrible risk to take. You hear the Navy telling us that this is a dangerous option to pursue and yet Tony Abbott, what is his response? On Sky News on 21 April this year he said:

It's not easy and we've had various naval officers tell us that it is tough, and that people don't always like it.

I'm not saying that it's not difficult, under certain circumstances, it might even be dangerous …

So even the Leader of the Opposition acknowledges that this option might be dangerous. And not just dangerous for asylum seekers, but it is also going to be dangerous for ADF personnel. That is who it is going to be dangerous for. And anybody who has been up and seen the important work that those people do would not put them in danger. And yet that is what the Leader of the Opposition, this armchair general sitting here in Canberra, is going to do. He is going to give them orders to turn back boats to a country that has made it clear—Indonesia has made it clear that it is not amenable to this policy.

So they have trashed every option. They have trashed Malaysia and they are in the process of trashing our relationship with Indonesia. It is a disgrace. We have an opposition that are so brazen. They think they have the election won and they are so brazen that they would come into this House and talk about national security, and in their ignorance display their idiocy—the member for Dawson, who is a fool, displays his ignorance—but the truth is that they use this issue as an incense burner for their vanity and for their lust for office. They will regret it in the long run because in their short-termism they have betrayed the national interest—not betrayed the government, but betrayed the Australian people.

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