Daniel Mulino (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I think that if there's one thing we can all agree on in this chamber it's that this matter raised today is a serious issue. Where we diverge is that I don't believe those opposite are treating the issue in a serious way, and I'll talk about that in three ways.

Firstly, I want to talk about the tone of the debate those opposite have engendered not just today in the MPI but more broadly across successive question times and in the broader discussion going on in the community. In particular I think it's the nature of the inflammatory way in which they've raised a number of the issues, the highly personalised way in which they've raised a number of the issues. When it's a serious and complicated issue and you're genuinely trying to grapple with that issue, I don't believe anybody could imagine that the best way to do that would be the way in which the Leader of the Opposition engaged in the debate at the beginning of this MPI. That's the first point I want to raise.

The second point—and this was touched on by the earlier two speakers on this side—is that, with a long-lasting and complex issue like migration, there are clearly long-lasting and systemic aspects to the issue. The second reason why I don't believe those opposite are engaging with this issue in a serious way is they continuously skirt the systemic nature of this issue. As the minister indicated, a number of reports on this issue—the Nixon report, the Richardson report, the Parkinson report—were all handed down by people respected across the political aisle, people who have contributed in our public service at the state and federal level over decades, who have indicated that the previous government failed on so many levels—whether it be the integrity of the system, whether it be the way in which the way the system is able to deal with organised crime, whether it be the way in which the system was underfunded year after year or the way in which the system didn't have the systems in place because of the way in which there was wilful neglect. Those systemic failures have created the context in which this government has inherited a system that is creaking under its own weight—a massive waiting list. It is impossible to discuss this system in any meaningful way unless one looks at it in that systemic way with the appropriate context.

The third reason why I believe those opposite aren't treating this issue with the seriousness it deserves is that I believe there is a patent disingenuousness to the way in which they raise issues. They come here constantly demanding apologies when they themselves, in the policies they enacted when in government and presumably in the policies they still hold, did the same or worse. As speakers on this side have indicated, 1,300 people with a criminal record were released when the current Leader of the Opposition was the minister for this portfolio. There is no introspection, no indication that he has any inclination to apologise for any of those cases. They come in here and give details of individual case after individual case. If that was the approach one wanted to take, clearly the same could be done with those 1,300 cases.

As the minister indicated, we have put in place a monitoring regime which has placed many of the people released in accordance with the High Court ruling under electronic monitoring and all of them under appropriate monitoring, as indicated in estimates, by our services. Those opposite had a system in place where nobody was under such monitoring, where no regime had been put in place. Yet they come in here and their hyperbole, their stunts, their political circus of a routine in this chamber is to constantly focus on the need for an apology when their own performance was clearly so much worse. They talk about the regime currently in place when they themselves voted for it, when it included a number of amendments that they themselves put—all of which were accepted. They come into this place with individual case after individual case under ministerial direction 99 when, quite clearly, under ministerial directions 90, 79 and 65 the very same criterion was in place.

This is a serious issue but those opposite aren't treating it seriously. That's sad for this chamber and sad for the way in which this issue is being discussed more broadly.

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