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

I am grateful for the question from my friend the member for Blair. It gives me the opportunity to address the complete hypocrisy of the last question that came from those opposite. The No. 1 priority of our government is the safety of the Australian community. I want to credit the minister for immigration on the leadership that he has shown on leading us through what has been a difficult High Court decision.

We always hope in Australian politics—and I certainly know that the community out there hopes for this—that, when it comes to matters like the protection of Australians, the two major parties can stand together in a bipartisan manner. So let's look at what the opposition have done in relation to community safety in recent days. What we have heard is a lot of rhetoric from those opposite talking about community safety, but we heard from the minister for immigration about something unspeakable that has happened recently, done by a frontbench member of those opposite. That is that Senator Dean Smith wrote a letter to our government lobbying for the release from detention of a convicted child sex offender. This is a remarkable thing to have done. A person who has reached a position of power in this parliament chose to use that position of power to advocate for a child sex offender.

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