Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Hansard source

What a sham this whole process is. This is a marathon—no, it's not a marathon; it's an ultramarathon in incompetence. It dates back to last May, and here we are today facing more and more incompetence. What a complete and utter mess.

Let's look at the process that we went through today. At 7.30 am, we had some legislation dropped off to us, and we were told that there would be a briefing at eight o'clock. That legislation, the Migration Amendment (Removal and Other Measures) Bill 2024, was ready, and it had a time and date on it: last Friday. Now, did the minister come to us and say, 'Okay, we want to give you this legislation so that you can look at it over the weekend and so that you can make sure there are no unintended consequences'? No, he did not. He sat on it over the weekend. He sat on it yesterday. Then he presented it to us today.

That is incompetence because, if it's not considered properly, if we can't look at the detail, if we can't make sure that there are no unintended consequences, this legislation might not do the job that the minister is hoping that it will do. That is why we have called on the government to have an inquiry in the Senate tonight. I hope that the government will support that enquiry. I hope that the crossbenchers will make sure that they support that enquiry. Although we only have limited time to look at this, we need that time to make sure we can interrogate this bill.

Let's look at the minister's track record when it comes to legislation going through this House and through this parliament. Let's look at his failure, on three key times, to turn up to legal briefings from his own department, which led us to the mess that we are in today. That in and of itself should be enough for the Prime Minister to have acted, but he hasn't. That's why we're sitting here today having to consider, debate and discuss a piece of legislation that we received at 7.30 am.

This piece of legislation was prepared and ready to go last Friday, yet the minister decided: 'Oh, no, I've got to be really careful. I don't want anything that I'm doing properly scrutinised or properly looked out, because it might show, once again, the errors of my ways.' That is the problem. When you have a minister in witness protection, a minister who can't even front up to the media today to say, 'We're going to be introducing this legislation. This is what it will do,' you end up getting mistake after mistake. That is why we want an inquiry tonight. We want that inquiry in the Senate so that at least we've got some time to be able to grill the department and see whether this legislation will do what it's set out to do and won't lead to unintended consequences.

What is one of our greatest fears when it comes to the botched and chaotic way that this legislation continues to be produced? You have to remember, I think this is the fourth or the fifth time that we've had rushed legislation put into this place. That is why we want it looked at. One of the serious unintended consequences that we are very, very concerned about is what this chaotic and botched approach is going to do to people smugglers. Our great fear—and, sadly, we saw this last Friday—is that we are going to see the people smugglers get their model going again. We really need to be able to drill down on this legislation to make sure that it's not providing that incentive. We've already seen boats arrive on the mainland and we saw, tragically, people drowning at sea last Friday. We have to be very conscious that this legislation and the way it's been drafted—the chaotic way the minister continues to do his job—doesn't provide perverse incentives for the boats to start up again, because no-one in this place wants to see that happening.

But, sadly, the way the government has approached this issue, dating back to the autumn of last year, has seen the people smugglers get their business model up and running again. That is our gravest concern when it comes to this legislation, and that is why we want to make sure we can get the department before a Senate hearing and grill them to make sure the chaotic and dysfunctional approach the government is taking won't lead to the type of unintended consequences that none of us want to see. When it comes to the way this government has handled immigration, the Australian people want the confidence that the government are getting something right, and so far they haven't been able to get anything right. The approach they're taking, the processes they're using, the botched and rushed way they're doing this gives the Australian people no confidence whatsoever that the immigration portfolio is being handled in a way that protects their safety.

I say to the minister and I say to the government: when your No. 1 priority is to keep the Australian community safe, they deserve better than what you're dishing up at the moment; they deserve much, much better. The fact that you would produce this legislation in the way and the form that you have shows that you have no idea what you are doing. What the Australian people want to see when it comes to their protection is a methodical approach, a considered approach, an approach where you go out and where you consult, an approach where, if you need bipartisanship, you just don't ram it down people's throats. That is what the Australian people are looking for when it comes to their safety.

Instead, the Australian people have now had, dating back to last autumn, error, mistake and buffoonery from the government the whole time, and they deserve better than that. So, I say to the minister: if you are going to get anything right and do something correctly in your portfolio, you need to make sure your government agrees to an inquiry tonight so that we have some time to consider this bill, some time to consult on this bill and then some time to interrogate your department on this bill. The sad reality is that we know that your track record of attending legal briefings is three-zip—three legal briefings, zero times attending those legal briefings. It is simply not good enough. We want to make sure you are doing your job, because there is no more important job than keeping the Australian community safe.

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