Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Fact: facts matter. First, Defence officials have confirmed that Operation Sovereign Borders is operating identically to when it came into force in 2013. There's been no change. Every attack by those opposite on Operation Sovereign Borders is an attack on the men and women who are patrolling our borders, who are doing the work to keep this country safe. Fact: Border Force funding is at its highest since it was established, in 2015, and tonight's budget will confirm even more.

The shadow minister started this MPI by saying that a man had been charged for not complying with his monitoring device, and the member for Higgins made the very good point that his ethnicity was unnecessarily mentioned. The fact is: if a man has been charged for not complying with his monitoring device, that shows the system is working as intended. A person has been given a monitoring device. They've allegedly broken the rules and conditions of that monitoring device. Police have charged them with an offence, and they'll now go through the justice process. That's how the system is meant to work. What alternative do those opposite think there is to this? Somebody is given a monitoring device, and then what? The High Court has determined we can't place people in indeterminate detention. The High Court struck down the law that those opposite brought into being. I must say our side defended it and also had it in operation, but it was a law that those opposite brought into being, and the High Court determined the law to be unconstitutional. So the law is working as intended.

Facts do matter. The shadow minister and the member for Durack have both referred to 153 'hardened criminals'. That's simply factually wrong, but it is repeated and repeated until people forget that it's wrong. It just gets repeated as if it's fact, and it's not right. Some of those people absolutely are hardened criminals, with very serious charges and very serious convictions, but some of them are not. Not all of those 153 people are hardened criminals, and you shouldn't call a person a hardened criminal if they're not one. Facts matter.

The shadow minister says he met Ninette Simons and her husband, Philip, when he went to visit Western Australia. I can tell you: the heart of every member on this side of the House is with that couple. Nobody should have to face what they had to endure—no matter their age, frankly. Clearly an assault occurred. There's an allegation as to who committed the assault, but clearly the couple were attacked. It should not have happened, and our thoughts are with them. It was an appalling attack. But when the shadow minister was in Western Australia did he tell Ninette Simons that one of the men charged with assaulting her had been released into the community—without condition and without monitoring—by the government that he was a member of? The shadow minister and the Leader of the Opposition have been all too happy to run to every microphone they can possibly find to try to pin that appalling alleged attack onto this government because one of the men who's been charged was released as a result of the High Court decision. Almost with glee they've been running to the media to try to do this. But, now that it's been discovered that the other man charged with that alleged assault is somebody they released, there's radio silence from those opposite. It's an appalling politicisation of a terrible incident that should never have occurred. I do agree with the member for Riverina that the couple have been failed by society generally—that in the comfort of their own home this could possibly occur to them.

News.com.au has reported that Labor's bid—and I'm quoting the reporter here. Actually, I'm going to run out of time. I will sit down.

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