Tania Lawrence (Hasluck, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak about my concern about the tactics and the words that are being used by those opposite to try to undermine the significant legislation, the Migration Amendment (Bridging Visa Conditions and Other Measures) Bill 2023, that we are endeavouring to introduce to ensure that Australians are safe from those who present a safety risk within our community. It is quite extraordinary that we have a Leader of the Opposition who is prepared to argue the merits of ignoring the High Court and having complete and utter disregard for the separation of powers, which exists for good reason, within our system.

While the government has been getting on and working to make sensible and restrained legislation that's fit for purpose to deal with the risk at hand, we have had members of the opposition leadership team writing letters to the government asking for the release of a detainee, a child sex offender. Using the approach that the Leader of the Opposition would use, detailing the extraordinary gory details, this is a person who failed the character test. He had his refugee visa cancelled. He developed a relationship with a younger person. He was convicted in 2015. It was both consensual and non-consensual sex—that was the verdict. A person from the Liberal frontbench wrote that he knew that, in the time passed, it still had a lasting effect on the victim and yet he still suggested that this person had demonstrated significant remorse and repentance. He didn't just write once; he wrote twice. He wrote again in February 2023, pleading the case again. This was Senator Dean Smith from the opposition. So, whilst we hear a lot of this tough talk, on the other hand we have a senator, a member of the opposition leadership team, advocating for the release of a detainee, a child sex offender, in immigration detention, awaiting deportation. Senator Smith was arguing that that person should be released into the community.

This is not a government that is trying to have it both ways. This is a government that is trying to be sensible, cautious and do what is necessary in order to be able to take actions to protect our community. This is not a government that is ignoring the High Court's decision. This is not a government that is ignoring the importance of the separation of powers.

Instead, what we have to deal with and confront on a far-too-frequent basis is the Leader of the Opposition—a man with a heart of stone and a desperation for power—trying to absolutely use this opportunity to politically pointscore and create division and fear within our community at a time when we need to be thinking in a completely alternative way about social cohesion, building, caring and being careful with our words.

The Leader of the Opposition has a lot to answer for, and the people that stand behind him and around him are answerable for that too.

When discussing measures of this nature that literally change the course of the way in which we run this country, it's important that we apply the appropriate diligence and that we do it in a way that is proportionate to the need to ensure that our community is safe, without the politicisation, the weaponisation, of something that is so deeply important to get right. We just ask that those opposite and the Leader of the Opposition start to demonstrate merit and absolute care in their choice of words instead of being fixated on trying to shore up his position as the stone-hearted man that is negative and determined to create division within our society.

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