Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Blair for his question. When the member for Blair refers to the golden ticket visa, it's the name that's often given to the significant investor visa. This is a visa that was abolished by this government—and abolished for very good reason. It was not consistent with the integrity of the visa system that Australians would expect.

I had thought that was a bipartisan position because of the serious national security reasons that were associated with its abolition. But, over recent days, we've seen that once again the Leader of the Opposition didn't realise there was a boom mic overhead. And, when asked about this visa, he said—not realising he was being heard:

I think we'll bring it back. Whether we do it before the election … we'll have to consider all that.

There has been a response from the founder of the Magnitsky Act, Sir Bill Browder. If those opposite want to in some way discredit someone of that esteem, I suggest they first go to the homepage of Senator Paterson, where you'll find both Sir Bill Browder being praised in the parliament and his image. But here's what he's had to say about this proposal, and these are all quotes. It's 'reopening the door to organised crime'. I quote again:

The types of people who have taken advantage of this in the past are often the ones you least want to have coming to your country.

I quote again, in language which I would not use:

Australia is not such a poor country that it needs to prostitute itself to Chinese and Russian criminals.

I quote again:

It's hard to imagine that it's good politics to be standing in front of the Australian people and saying, 'we want to have potentially dodgy criminals buying their way into Australian residency and Australian passports.'

It seems like the kind of thing that someone might be doing just for a narrow group of political contributions.

When it comes to immigration policy, I suggest the Australian people don't look at what the Leader of the Opposition says but look at what he does. He opposed limiting the number of students coming in. He issued more visas than any other minister in history, and now he is wanting, as policy, cash for visas.

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