Keith Wolahan (Menzies, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

In this matter of public importance, I would like to begin by referring to the wording of the topic and the order of the words chosen. It says:

This government's failure to keep Australians safe and the economy strong.

It is put in that order because that is the order of priority. Of course Australians are suffering throughout this country and the cost of living is chief amongst them, and a very close second is housing. But we put 'keeping Australians safe' first because that is the fundamental duty of government. To follow on from my friend, the member for Flinders, who referred to the specific incidents and the specific crimes that occurred on 7 October, it is more than just keeping Australians safe. It is about keeping children safe. The people who prosecuted that attack on that day attacked teenagers at a concert, children in their homes and babies in their cots. This isn't some isolated part of the world that has no connection to us. You only have to open a newspaper to see that concerts run by Taylor Swift get cancelled because of a fear of teenagers being killed and attacked. So when we turn our mind to keeping Australians safe, let's not forget what is at stake. It is everything. What we have seen in the last two weeks has been a race to the gutter not only by the crossbench but by the government. When we have asked proper questions about that crucial topic, some have used the word 'racist', but then others have used euphemisms like 'divide' and 'fear' as if that's okay and that they're not hinting at the very same thing.

I rise here as a migrant to this nation and as someone who is only alive because of the courage of people of Muslim faith who saved my life. I never forget that. I acknowledge their contributions in saving many Australians' lives in the war in Afghanistan and in other wars. There would be many more names on that war memorial, and I would count my own amongst them. When we ask questions like this and the allegation is thrown out that we're doing it as some sort of discrimination against Palestinians or Muslims, I totally reject that and I totally reject that any of my colleagues think otherwise. Think about what you are saying. You are saying, if that is true, that a huge percentage of the House of Representatives are people of such bad character that they think that poorly of people of a dominant faith in this country. It cannot be true, you know it's not true and it shouldn't be prosecuted that way.

In my experiences in a conflict zone, I also know this to be true: we hear of the fog of war and many think of the fog of war as that moment when there's incomplete information and a particular person has their fight or flight system kick in—their mouth is dry, their heart is racing—because they don't know what is happening in all of the chaos that is in war. But the fog of war applies to information too. Again and again we had on-the-ground missions confirm that the intelligence we were given was wrong. It happened all the time. I noticed it when I had the experience as someone who worked in a headquarters and then became a platoon commander. Getting on the ground and looking people in the eye is the only form of intelligence and information that you can rely on. Yet what we have seen from this government is a cavalier attitude to that process—a complete dismissal of it. We've had the Treasurer and many others get up and say, 'Well, why aren't you asking questions about the cost of living?' The government didn't answer the questions that we put to them. In fact, there was a bristling that we dared even ask them.

Let's go to some of the questions. I asked about the cancellation of visas. The Prime Minister talked about a journalist and said only that any cancellations were offshore. I asked about visa security vetting, and he talked about robodebt. Asked if he was making Australia less safe, he talked about Sir Robert Menzies. Asked about face-to-face interviews and biometric testing—again, the only vetting that matters—the Prime Minister talked about the coalition. And today, when asked about what the state police and Federal Police have told him, what did he reply? He talked about nominations for councils in New South Wales.

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