Matt Keogh (Burt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Last week the immigration minister announced that he would be cutting financial support and housing for up to 400 asylum seekers presently in Australia. He also complained that lawyers who defend people's legal rights are un-Australian, suggesting that the social justice motivations of law firms, including those at the top end of town, were part of a politically correct plot. Then he accused these un-Australian lawyers of wasting taxpayers' dollars on High Court cases. If the minister is so concerned about the impact of his decisions on the budget bottom line, perhaps he and his department should make decisions according to law. Maybe he should work with our international neighbours to make regional resettlement a reality and save the cost of offshore detention centres. Seriously, how on earth does upholding the rule of law and protecting a person's legal rights undermine our nation's values? I thought a fair go was central to who we are as a nation. It's the sort of argument you hear from a bent cop. It's not what we should be hearing from a minister of state.

If large corporate law firms around the country are prepared to give up staff time and profits to assist with claims against the government—a government that provides these firms with millions of dollars worth of legal work—surely that should be telling him something. It should be an alarm bell—not that there are too many do-gooders out there but that there are serious problems with the way that this government behaves.

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