Clare O'Neil (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Home Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I want to thank the parliament for this opportunity to support Minister Giles in putting this bill forward to the parliament. It is part of the government's response to a High Court decision that was made last week. I want to come back to that decision because the Leader of the Opposition has come forward to the parliament and made a series of statements in his speech just now that he knows to be untrue. He knows them to be untrue, I know them to be untrue and a grade 6 student who is studying politics in a primary school can tell you that they're untrue. The consistent falsehood that continues to be put forward by the Leader of the Opposition is that this a choice by the government. I will say again to you, Speaker, that one thing I actually agree with the Leader of the Opposition about is that some of the people at the heart of this decision have committed deplorable crimes; disgusting crimes—crimes that no-one in this parliament, surely, would accept. That is why we kept them in detention and that's why the people opposite kept them in detention. What we had last Wednesday was the High Court telling us that we must remove those people. We only do so for that reason.

I have said it before, and I will say it again: if I had any legal power to keep these people detained, I would. I would do it. We do not have that power—that is what the High Court has told us. That is why we are putting forward a comprehensive response which deals with the community safety implications of this problem, which are real. That is why we released people in detention on the strictest-possible legal conditions. That is why we set up a joint ABF-AFP operation which is case managing these people in detention. That is why we are bringing forward a bill to the parliament which gives our government powers that no government has ever had before to manage community safety risks from people in detention.

The Leader of the Opposition loves to present himself as a tough guy on borders. He never wrote laws as tough as this. These laws will allow the Commonwealth to make sure that we have electronic monitoring of people.

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