Clare O'Neil (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Housing) Share this | Hansard source

Let me just make a few comments off the top about the migration matters that have been raised here. Migration is coming down because of changes that have been made by our government, and we've done this in a system that Dr Martin Parkinson has described as 'fundamentally broken' by 'a decade of wilful neglect'. And, if there is a single person in this parliament who is responsible for that broken system, he sits over here—in the opposition leader's chair.

The Minister for Home Affairs talked yesterday about the fact that there is one gold medal in this parliament for the person who issued the most number of visas in a single year. It wasn't a Labor minister; it was the Leader of the Opposition, who talks a big game. He talks a big game about migration, but we learned something very important about him this week. We learnt that he is an absolute fraud, because, when it came to the chance to address some of the issues that the honourable member has asked me about, the Leader of the Opposition, instead of doing the right thing and helping us take action, went—

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