Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Hansard source

Well, that is true: to try and do everything we can to reduce the model for people smugglers. Yet what we have here is a government which, rather than putting people smugglers out of business, has gone about and created a new business for people smugglers: 'If you come along and draw up beside an Australian Navy vessel then there's half a chance that you're going to get a wad of cash paid by the Australian taxpayers.' Is that the way to go about it? Is that the way the former immigration minister would think that this should be handled?

I have to tell you, Madam Speaker, that this has now left the government with a situation where the Prime Minister has made it clear that he is refusing to rule this out and has invited the Australian people to believe that this is exactly what has happened. He has left his immigration minister and his foreign minister absolutely high and dry. We are in a situation now where this is actually what has occurred. When the immigration minister was asked to begin with whether or not people smugglers have been paid to take people back to Indonesia and denied it, at that point the minister not only has an issue with policy but has a personal issue in terms of his ministerial role, as does the foreign minister.

What we have seen today we did not see back then. We did not see any avoidance of this issue on the basis of it being an intelligence matter or an operational matter. We just saw back then a flat denial that this happened, and now we have them running away from it. So what we have is the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection and the Minister for Foreign Affairs left high and dry by this Prime Minister, and what we now need to hear from the Prime Minister is a clear statement of clarity about whether or not people smugglers were paid to take people back to Indonesia, because otherwise he is leaving out there the kind of inducement for people smugglers to get on the water and to turn up next to an Australian Navy vessel. What he has also done is leave his ministers high and dry with a whole lot of explaining to do.

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