Andrew Wilkie (Clark, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

My comments will be brief because the substantive issue is incredibly simple, and that is that the Migration Amendment (Strengthening the Character Test) Bill 2021 is entirely unnecessary because the government and the minister already have sweeping powers to cancel or revoke visas on the basis of someone's character. It's that simple. We don't need to be here. But it does raise the question: why are we here? Why is the government bringing on this entirely unnecessary and patently cruel built? I'll tell you why. It's because this government will miss no opportunity to pander to racism, to hate and to xenophobia. It will take every opportunity to polish up its national security and so-called border security credentials, and it will not miss an opportunity to try to wedge the opposition whenever it can. I will say it again. This bill is unnecessary. It is a blatant attempt by this government to pander to racism, bigotry and xenophobia and to thump its chest and make out it is tough on national security, tough on border security. It will not miss this opportunity to try to wedge the opposition.

And what's Labor doing? It's going to roll over. It's going to abandon all the towering speeches it has given on this bill and previous iterations of this bill. It's going to completely abandon high principle. It's going to roll over for one purpose: to pander to its political self-interest and try to get more votes at the next election in order to win government. In other words, this mob is unprincipled. We know that that mob is unprincipled! This is an opportunity tonight for this mob to show some backbone. But it won't. It 'll roll over as it chases votes.

I say shame on the lot of you! On this issue, when it comes to some aspects of national security and certainly when it comes to border security, I've had a gutful of the lot of you—the government and the opposition. You are completely and utterly unprincipled—and that's not good enough, that's not in the public interest. Why can't we in this place finally show some humanity, show that we are a principled country, show that we do the right thing, show that we treat people fairly, show that we have a developed sense of judicial justice, show that we respect the judicial system and show that we don't go around accusing judges of cooking the books and looking for loopholes. This is another terrible missed opportunity tonight—that the government would behave like this and that the weaklings in the opposition go along for the ride.

It's not good enough for the opposition to say: 'Don't you worry about our behaviour tonight. We'll seek to amend this bill in the Senate.' No, you should vote every time along the lines of what you believe is right and how you feel about a bill. It's like the Religious Discrimination Bill last week. We had towering speech after towering speech after towering speech from the Opposition—and then they rolled over and voted in favour of the bill. You are weaklings the lot of you! What has this country come to? And then you look with amazement at the rise of the Independents and try to come up with some explanation as to why there is such a high interest in the crossbench and the Independents right now. It's because we represent our community, we vote on conscience, we stand on high principle and we don't abandon all of that just for the sake of some lousy votes.

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