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

It is to state the obvious that this debate and this area of public policy is enormously complex and enormously sensitive. There is much in the way the government has handled offshore processing about which we on the opposition side would criticise. We criticise the failure to find credible third-country options in a timely way and we believe this has been one of the critical issues leading to the difficulties faced, right now, in relation to the running of both Manus and Nauru. But what matters deeply in this debate is that we be very clear and very accurate about what facts we know.

This is an almost impossible debate to have and a problem that is impossible to resolve, in circumstances where what is portrayed and what people say do not marry up with the reality of the situation. There has never been, I would suggest, a debate in this country where it has been more important to be utterly faithful and accurate to the facts as we know them. The opposition will not be supporting the honourable member's motion. This is because he suggested the minister implied something that, clearly, the minister did not say, and the Hansard record will bear that out.

I have looked very closely at the motion and spoke with the minister, briefly, to get his recollection—and I, obviously, have my own recollection of what was said in here. The motion suggests the minister said something he did not. There is a principle in all of this that matters: that we get the facts right as we seek to debate this issue, that we be absolutely and forensically and passionately and zealously accurate about it, because we as a country are not going to resolve this issue so long as we make spin a part of how we go about this. In circumstances where what the minister has said is a matter that is plainly on the record, we are not going to be voting for something that suggests something different. That does not mean the opposition does not have a whole lot of matters of difference between ourselves and the government in relation to this; we do and I made that clear in the opening to this contribution.

In relation to Baby Asha, her treatment and care needs to be handled sensitively. It needs to be handled on the basis of her treating physician's and practitioner's advice. And the decisions government makes on her fate and her family's need to be made on the basis of Australia having an ongoing obligation for the safety of all asylum seekers and refugees in direct and indirect care of the Australian government, both onshore and offshore. That is the basis on which the government should be making its decisions, in relation to Baby Asha and her family, and that is a position the opposition has made clear.

Ultimately, the position we take on the motion put before us today is based on our need and belief that the debate has to be had on the basis of accurately representing what all of us say within that debate, and this resolution simply does not do that.

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