Meryl Swanson (Paterson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

SWANSON () (): The overriding premise of today's matter of public importance is 'keeping Australians safe'. When you come to federal parliament, the two key tenets of what we do here in federal parliament—and I often talk to my students about this when they come to visit us here in Parliament House—are the budget and defence. We are charged here in Canberra with those two strings to our bow.

The first part of this is really being able to balance the books, and we have been able to do that. We have been able to deliver three budgets now with budgets in surplus. Those opposite weren't able to do that, even though they did have the coffee mugs made and the press releases ready to issue. Even though they absolutely delight in saying, 'The problem with Labor is that they can't manage the books'—they say this by rote—here's the thing: we can manage the books. We have delivered surpluses. We've cut our deficit. We've cut the amount that we need to borrow to service the debt that our nation has. Treasurer Chalmers is doing a fantastic job. At an absolute base level for Australians, we are managing our economy far and beyond what anyone on the other side did for 10 years. In terms of safety, that is the primal thing for so many Australians. They want to know that they have a government that can manage the money like they do in their homes every day trying to pay their mortgage.

The other part of what we're sent here to do is defend the nation. We regularly ask other Australians to pull on a uniform in defence of this nation. I find it very curious that the opposition brings matters of public importance like this one, beating that drum of fear and trying to say to our Australian community, 'Oh, it's a shambles. It's no good. The immigration minister is not doing a good job,' when for 10 years they systematically underspent in areas of defence and immigration. We had a one-million-application backlog in immigration under their watch. People came here on planes. When people did come by boats—and they did—we had no knowledge. The coalition said, 'It's an on-water matter, and we can't talk about it.' So to suggest that we are doing a worse job than they did in their 10 years is, quite frankly, bunkum. It is despicable actually. Also, all they're trying to do is raise the fear of Australian people, raise their ire with our government, when we have turned up, cleaned up the coalition's mess and really we are making a fist of the dreadful hand that was dealt to us when we came to government. To suggest that we are not doing a reasonable job and trying to fix this matter and clear it up properly within the constraints of law, and the High Court, is beyond the pale. I find it quite frustrating and almost insulting from an opposition who—it is now quite obvious—have really no policies to bring forward to the Australian people. All they've got left in their bag of tricks is fear—

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