Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Hansard source

The reason that the coalition opposes this matter being brought on in the manner in which it is being done is that the government are trying to hide, cover up and distract from the new Prime Minister's record on border protection. That is what they want to do. I am sure the new Prime Minister will have lots of new thoughts and lots of new theories. He may even—but do not hold your breath—decide to apologise to the country, as he should, for removing the proven border protection measures of the Howard government.

The Australian people know that this Prime Minister does not believe in stronger border protection measures, because they have seen his record and because when he was given that opportunity in 2007 he chose to abolish strong border protection measures and instead put in place much weaker measures. We know that, as the boats continue to arrive one after the other, the Prime Minister—as he was then—will continue to make excuses. He went through a series of chronic failures. It was this Prime Minister, when he was Prime Minister previously, who had his minister for immigration give permanent protection visas to those who blew up SIEV36. That was his record. It was this Prime Minister who instituted the asylum freeze that actually hard-wired into the system the riots that later occurred under this Prime Minister's successor. This Prime Minister's bungling of the Oceanic Viking saga, with his megaphone diplomacy, had two significant impacts: firstly, it put out a clarion call to everybody around the world that the Labor government was a soft touch on boats—so get yourself to Indonesia because you can get yourself to Australia, because that Prime Minister is a soft touch; and, secondly, a la what this Prime Minister's successor did in terms of the live cattle trade with Indonesia, this Prime Minister's approach to Indonesia was to embarrass and to force his ego on that Indonesian government. We all know the outcome of that.

If, indeed, the Prime Minister is to go to Indonesia in a week or so, after he has apologised for the actions of his predecessor with regard to the live cattle trade, perhaps the Prime Minister should also apologise to the Indonesian government for the bungling and insulting way in which he handled the crisis over the Oceanic Viking. It was a crisis that was completely self-made by this Prime Minister.

This bill, which has been brought before this parliament, is seeking to do one thing: to choke the 457 system, which has been so important. It is a system that the now Treasurer, when as Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, said:

… they had the balance right.

I would have thought with the change in the line-up—which is a moving feast, as there are more vacancies sitting on that front bench today than we have seen in a very long time as they try to scramble together this chaotic, dysfunctional and divided government—that one of the things the now Treasurer would like to see done would be to honour what he said when he was minister for immigration in his discussions with the new Prime Minister, which is that this bill be discarded with; but that is not what is happening.

The first thing this Prime Minister is seeking to do is to have this matter brought on for debate and decided here in this House. As the Prime Minister moves around the country—as his goes into seats like Banks, Greenway, Parramatta or Reid—and talks about his support for skilled migration, he should remind those whom he is speaking to about his actions here on this day, because this bill is an attack on skilled migrants and it is an attack on the skilled migration program.

A government member interjecting—

The minister interjects, but the minister does not even understand the significance of this scheme. He does not seem to understand that the 457 program is the way in which skilled migrants are increasingly coming into this country and moving onto permanent residency. The minister opposite has interjected and suggested that somehow the coalition is demonising skilled migrants here. What we know about this government is that they cannot do anything about stopping people coming the wrong way, so now they are going to try and stop people coming the right way—but there are a few exceptions.

There is the former Prime Minister's media adviser. Maybe he has got 29 days to find a job or maybe the new Prime Minister will take him on! Maybe he will, otherwise he has got 29 days. This bill is seeking to extend that out to 90. Maybe the 457s will continue to survive for those who want to work in the union movement in communications. The union movement seem to want to spend a lot more time on communicating the government's message than on actually representing those they are supposed to represent and promoting their working conditions and their wellbeing in the workplace.

This is a union movement which is completely locked at the hip to this government, and anyone who thought the new Prime Minister was going to have a change of form when it came to the unions or doing deals with the unions and the factions they run here in this place is getting a very early lesson: nothing has changed when it comes to this government. They can change their leaders as often as they like, but they cannot change the chaos that is happening on our borders, the dysfunction and division that is occurring in their own ranks or the team that they have on their front bench—which is very vacant at the moment. They cannot form a team that can produce the type of stability that we need—and this is a time when we do need stability. So the fact that the government want to chop and change the order of today's proceedings to try and ram through this union-driven bill, I think, is just a demonstration of the continuing division and dysfunction that is evident in this government.

There are two teams on offer here. There is the team that has worked together cooperatively on this side of the House for the last three or four years—

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