Luke Simpkins (Cowan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

) ( There is no greater human tragedy taking place currently—and, probably, there has not been in recent history—than what is happening in the conflict in Iraq and Syria. It is timely that this country, through the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, has brought the integrity of the immigration system and the humanitarian intake back under control. Now is the time when we need to concentrate on what is important, and that is the need of people to be brought to this country as refugees, as part of that humanitarian intake and not under the past arrangements where means were the determinant, where people bypassed the system. It is an absolute disgrace that we have so-called refugee advocates such as Ian Rintoul, Gillian Triggs and Senator Sue Lines—and others on that side—who want to dismantle this integrity, who want to restore the arrangements whereby means were the determinant for people coming to this country.

There are people stuck in refugee camps right now, all the way around the world and particularly in those conflict zones, that do not have the means to come to Australia. They cannot buy airline tickets through Dubai, Singapore, Indonesia or anywhere like that. They do not have the means to do that. They are stuck there. Those are the people that we need to be looking after. It is an absolute disgrace that there are those people out there—those people that I named before—who want to reinstall a system whereby cash, and not genuine need, is the determinant for people coming to this country. It is an absolute disgrace. I hope they just get out of the way and allow the government to get on with looking after the people that really need help in this world, and those are the people without means. They are the ones with the greatest need, and I support them completely. I again congratulate the minister for his excellent work in this area.

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