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

The motion is seconded. I didn't think that we'd get to this stage, but this is where we've got to. We've got to the fact that the prime minister now is as hopeless and hapless as the previous minister for immigration. As a matter of fact, they are peas in a pod. If you think about what has happened and the track record of both now, they're exactly the same

The former minister for immigration let 152 detainees out on the street and then came into this place and said they had all been issued with visas and had conditions placed on them. Then what did we find out down the track? That hadn't happened. FOIs showed us that some of them—and as the Leader of the Opposition has said, hardened criminals, murderers, sex offenders, child sex offenders—had been released without visas and without conditions placed on them. Did the Prime Minister, when he knew about that, require the former minister for immigration to come in here and admit that he had misled this parliament? No, he didn't. And now we know why, because if he had required him to do that, he would be in here today doing exactly the same thing. Yet where is he? Where is he? No-one knows. And what has he been accused of? It is not just misleading the parliament in some form, which is sort of irrelevant. What he has done is he has misquoted the director-general of ASIO. How can you not quote the director-general of ASIO in the correct form and think that you can get away with it? I'm glad the new minister for immigration is here because I hope to hell, for the Australian people's sake, that he isn't as hopeless and hapless as the previous minister for immigration and the prime minister.

Let's look at what the prime minister has done. He was asked a very simple question, which goes to the No. 1 priority of this government: was everyone who came into this country from the Gaza war zone properly given a security check—every single one of them? And the prime minister said, 'Yes, they had.' Now we know that is not the case, and there is nothing that the new minister for immigration can show us or prove to say that what the Prime Minister has said was correct. The Prime Minister stands condemned today, the former minister for immigration stands condemned today, and what we will wait to hear now is whether the new minister for immigration has any explanation for two things. The first is: where is the Prime Minister and why won't he come and defend his honour? Because he knows he's wrong. He knows he has misled this place. The second thing we want to hear from the new immigration minister is: what was done to make sure that Australians are going to be kept safe from the people that have come in from the Gaza war zone? If we don't hear answers to those two things, then you might as well not get up and say anything.

The other thing that will be very interesting to see while you're here defending the Prime Minister is whether the Prime Minister will come in to listen to the new minister for immigration defend him. Will he? Do you reckon he will? What do you think? I've got a feeling that the PM won't turn up. He'll stay in his office watching on the television because he's gutless. He won't come in here and defend himself. That is weakness at its worst and that is why he stands condemned today.

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