Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Does the Prime Minister stand by her pre-election commitment that she would never send boat people to any country that had not signed the UN convention on refugees?

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

To the Leader of the Opposition's question I say that, as usual, he has missed the point. The point before this parliament today, and what the Leader of the Opposition needs to answer as a test of leadership, is whether he will join with the government in amending the Migration Act so that the government can pursue its determined arrangement with Malaysia to transfer asylum seekers. That is the question before the parliament today.

Coming into the parliament today, I did expect to see these kinds of tactics from the opposition, because the Leader of the Opposition has to face up to a test—whether or not he is just full of slogans and sound bites or whether he will take seriously questions of Australia's national security. That is the key question after the High Court case: whether or not the Leader of the Opposition will pursue a strategy to wreck in his political interest or whether he will seek to work in the national interest. That is before the parliament for consideration and something the Leader of the Opposition needs to answer.

On the question of refugee signatory countries, as the Leader of the Opposition is well aware, the government has entered into an arrangement with Malaysia. And in entering into that arrangement we have negotiated—

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, on a point of order: on three occasions in this answer the Prime Minister has tried to redefine the question she was asked. It was a very straightforward question: does she stand by the commitment she made before the last election not to send boat people to any other country that had not signed the refugee convention? That is the question that the whole parliament and the country wants an answer to.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The Prime Minister must directly relate her response to the question.

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. In direct answer to the question: as the Leader of the Opposition is well aware, the government has negotiated an arrangement with Malaysia where the refugee convention obligations this nation has freely assumed will be honoured in respect of the people that we transfer. This is the arrangement, which we have the most clear advice from experts within the Public Service, that will act as the clearest possible deterrent for people smugglers.

I say to the Leader of the Opposition who asked this question: I detect hypocrisy here. This is the Leader of the Opposition who, during the election campaign, said his policy, if he were Prime Minister, would be a 'boat phone'—that is, he would make calls to patrol boats as he sat at the Lodge or Kirribilli requiring them to turn boats around. He knew that was not possible, but he was pretending to the Australian people that he would tow those boats back to Indonesia, which is not signatory to the refugee convention. As to the outcome for the people on those boats, he was never going to worry himself about that.

So the Leader of the Opposition in the last election campaign marketed a sham policy behind a three-word slogan. If he had been able to implement it, it would have taken asylum seekers to a non-refugee convention signatory country with no protections. The issue now, post the High Court case, is: will the Leader of the Opposition finally deal with the facts of this policy debate and will he ensure, by working with the government to amend the Migration Act, that the government of the day can make the decisions it needs to make to have asylum seekers processed offshore or will he just go on wrecking? This is the test for the Leader of the Opposition.

Mr Randall interjecting—

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, on a point of order: I ask that the member for Canning withdraw his interjections.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! I am unaware of what the member for Canning has said, but usually when somebody has risen to their feet with an objection, it is an indication to me that something may have been said that deserves withdrawal, and it may assist the House if the member for Canning withdraws.

Don Randall (Canning, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw.

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the Prime Minister. Given that Nauru has signed the refugee convention and Malaysia has not, why is the Prime Minister persisting with a policy that has been rejected by the High Court—and many in her own party—and which offends every principle that she has ever espoused? Further, why didn't the Prime Minister talk to the President of Nauru, when she sat next to him last week, about re-opening the Nauru detention centre that is the one proven success in the fight to stop the boats?

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

To the Leader of the Opposition I say this: we made available to him a briefing so he could get the facts. He has the facts now. He has the facts from the experts who also served the Howard government. Coming into this parliament and trying to twist the truth just will not cut it. Those experts who sat with the Leader of the Opposition advised him that Nauru will not work. That is what they told him and he screams, 'Give it a go!' He has been told by the best advice available to government that Nauru will not work. He has been told by the best advice available to government that it will cost hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars. So the policy proposition he is now putting before the Australian people is that he will rip money off Australian taxpayers to fund a solution that experts have told him will not work. Those same experts told him that Malaysia will send a hard-hitting deterrence message. You cannot have it more simply than that. It is clear that Malaysia will send a powerful message to smash the people-smugglers' business model. It is clear that Nauru will not work.

I say to the Leader of the Opposition that, just as he does when he is dealing with climate change, it may be that he wants to go before the Australian people and argue in the face of expert advice. He does that with climate change, where he says, 'Don't listen to the scientists.' He does it with climate change where he says, 'Don't listen to the economists.' And now in this area of policy he may well be saying to the Australian people that he rejects out-of-hand the advice of the Ambassador for People Smuggling Issues, the advice of the secretary of the department of immigration. That is a matter for him. He can go and argue that in the Australian community. What he ought not to do is to come to this parliament and not support legislation which would put executive government in the position of being able to make its best decisions about offshore processing.

I freely accept that there is a difference between me and the Leader of the Opposition. I have absorbed the facts and the advice and I am acting on them. Those facts and that advice spell out to me that we must do the Malaysia arrangement. The Leader of the Opposition, in denial of the facts, in denial of the advice, insists on Nauru. That is as it may be, but the proposition that will come before this parliament will be a proposition that will put executive government in the position to implement the policy that it wants to implement. We will implement Malaysia; we will implement a complementary centre in PNG. If the Leader of the Opposition is ever Prime Minister of this country then he can implement Nauru. But what he should not do, and this is the test for him, is to deny executive government the legislative authority to make that decision. Ironically, if he goes down that path of wrecking and denying the national interest, he is actually going down a path which would deny any future Liberal government, if it were ever elected, the ability to implement the solution it argues for. It is this point of national interest that the Leader of the Opposition must answer.