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

I move:

That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the Member for Warringah moving immediately—That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the Member for Warringah moving immediately—That order of the day No. 4, Migration Legislation Amendment (Offshore Processing and Other Measures) Bill 2011, be called on immediately and the question on the second reading be put forthwith.

Why is the Prime Minister who has just scurried out of this parliament, scared of putting her Malaysian people swap to the vote? A Prime Minister who cannot stay in the parliament to listen to a debate like this is a Prime Minister who does not deserve to stay in office. She does not deserve to stay in office. This Prime Minister is scared of this parliament. She is scared of putting her legislation to this parliament because she is scared that this parliament will no longer support her.

I have a news flash for the parliament: the caucus is meeting at 4:15 this afternoon. I wonder what they are going to be discussing. Could it be the people swap legislation? Could the people swap legislation be about to bite the dust? There will be some interesting discussion in the caucus this afternoon at 4:15. Senator Faulkner will want onshore processing, Senator Bishop will want Nauru, the Minister for Foreign Affairs will say, 'Let's not lurch to the Right,' the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship will say, 'I resign,' and the Prime Minister herself will say anything—anything at all—that will help her to save her increasingly desperate job.

I say to this parliament that on no fewer than six occasions this Prime Minister has said that the people swap legislation will come before the parliament. It was so important that the people swap legislation come before the parliament because she wanted every single coalition member's name to be recorded. Now she is frightened that the names of Labor members of this parliament will not be recorded because she knows that some of them are not going to support the government's legislation. She knows that if this government tries to put its legislation to the parliament it will be in crisis. She knows that if the government tries to put its legislation to the parliament what will in fact happen is that this parliament will effectively vote no confidence in this government. Bring it on.

Honourable Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

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

'Rubbish,' she says. Bring it on. If they are not scared of the result, bring on the legislation and bring it on now. For weeks this Prime Minister has been saying that the most important issue before the parliament was protecting our borders through the Malaysian people swap deal, and what have we seen over the last 24 hours? We have seen the government debate everything under the sun, put votes on everything, but the one thing they do not want to debate or vote upon is the one thing they were saying was essential for days and weeks. Shame on this government. What has happened in the last 24 hours? Is border protection no longer important? Have the boats stopped coming from Indonesia? Has the people smugglers' business model suddenly been destroyed? What has changed? What has changed over the last 24 hours? I will tell you what has changed: the Prime Minister knows she lacks the numbers in the parliament to carry her legislation. She lacks the numbers in the parliament to do the most vital function of any government—to protect the borders of this nation. I say a party with no policy on border protection is a party with no right to be in government. A government that cannot secure its border protection policy from the parliament is a government which should immediately call an election. That is what it should do. It should call an election, which is what the last government that could not secure parliamentary support for a major piece of legislation had the courage, honour and decency to do.

What we now know is that this Prime Minister is so desperate to cling to power that she is prepared to limp on without the policy that just days ago she said was absolutely vital to secure the security of this nation. What a sorry record this government has: 220 boats, 12,000 people and every single one of those boats a sign of policy failure. We have had those boats and we have had those people. We have had the riots and we have had the drownings. We have had these things because this government was not magnanimous enough to leave well enough along. It was not magnanimous enough to leave in place a policy that worked. The Howard government's policy stopped the boats, and for more than a decade this coalition has been absolutely crystal clear and absolutely consistent. We have a three-point plan to stop the boats—we have always had it; we will always have it. It is offshore processing at Nauru, it is temporary protection visas and it is the option of turning boats around where it is safe to do so.

By contrast, since the Pacific solution was scrapped, first of all we had the asylum-processing freeze, the most discriminatory immigration policy since White Australia—shame on members opposite. Then we had the East Timor solution, which sank somewhere in the Timor Sea because this Prime Minister did not know enough about East Timor to understand the different roles of the President and the Prime Minister. Then we had the Manus solution, which did not get anywhere because the Prime Minister was not prepared to ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs to get involved lest the foreign minister succeeded and showed her up. And, finally, we have had the Malaysian people swap, which is about to be dumped by a caucus that knows that if it proceeds it will destroy itself in this parliament.

Let us be absolutely crystal clear: the Malaysian people swap is a dud deal. It is a dud deal because it is a cruel deal for boat people and a poor deal for Australia. No self-respecting country would engage in a one-for-five people swap. It is not only a dud deal but also a deal that has been demonstrated not to work. Since it was announced, we have had 1,299 illegal arrivals by boat. Since it was signed, we have had 732 illegal arrivals by boat. Everyone is against the Malaysia people swap. This parliament, both houses, have condemned it. The High Court of Australia has struck it down. Many federal Labor MPs are obviously against it, to the extent of not being prepared to vote for it in this parliament. The Victorian Labor Party has condemned it at its conference. The Western Australian Labor caucus, including the next leader of the Western Australian Labor Party, has condemned it. There are no fewer than 26 Labor branches that have passed motions condemning this deal. But I tell you what, Mr Speaker, this Prime Minister is not going to drop the people swap because it is wrong; she is going to drop the people swap because she knows she will lose—that is why she is going to drop it.

On every single aspect of border protection policy this Prime Minister has been inconsistent. She supported temporary protection visas, and then she opposed them. She opposed offshore processing, and now she says she supports it. She supported turning boats around, then she opposed it, now she wants a virtual turnaround. She opposed sending people to countries that had not signed the UN convention. Now she says we must send people to a country which not only has not signed the UN convention but wants to cane people.

What a shabby, miserable, divided and directionless government this rabble have become. Have your caucus meeting, but admit you do not know how to deal with this problem and call an election.

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

Is the motion seconded?

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion, Mr Speaker. Today we learned that the government will not have the confidence of this House for their failed asylum and border protection policies. And what we have learned as the day has progressed is that this government does not even have confidence in itself to be able to bring its bill forward and allow it to be voted on today in this place. This is not terribly surprising because the Australian people lost confidence in this government a long time ago—and not only on this issue but on all of the issues we have seen come before this place, most significantly demonstrated yesterday as they patted themselves on the back as they introduced the world's largest carbon tax on the Australian people.

The only people who have confidence in the government's border protection policies are the people smugglers. They say they want to smash the people smugglers' business model. What they need to understand is they are the people smugglers' business model, and what they have put forward in this place over four years has underwritten that business model. Tens of millions of dollars have gone into the pockets of people smugglers as people have paraded themselves onto boats and put their lives at risk.

It is necessary to suspend standing orders here today to bring on the Migration Act amendment bill to give the government the opportunity to restore some credibility by supporting the coalition's amendments to the act to restore what they abolished. More than three years ago the government abolished offshore processing—that is what they did: abolished offshore processing. They abolished temporary protection visas. They abolished their own Prime Minister's pre-election promise in 2007 that he would turn boats around. The only person who has been processed offshore by this government is the former Prime Minister: the Minister for Foreign Affairs. And as the Minister for Foreign Affairs spends his time at the front of the plane reading Lazarus Rising, as we learned in this place this week, what we have also learned is that this government has absolutely no policy whatsoever when it comes to this area.

Offshore processing did not end with the decision of the High Court. It ended with the decision of this government back in 2008. Since then we have seen failure after failure from this government. What we have seen, as the Leader of the Opposition said, as they embarked on their 'anything but Nauru' strategy for the last four years is the Oceanic Viking debacle. We have seen with the failed asylum freeze that its only purpose and end, it would seem, was to produce another 12,000 people coming on boats from Afghanistan. We have seen the East Timor farce as regional leaders had to endure an endless polite conversation, listening to a Prime Minister talk about a policy she knew would never happen and that this government never believed in.

What we see from the government now is them coming into this place and seeking a blank cheque from this parliament for more failures. Well, we have got a tip for the government, and that is they should put back in place what they abolished. They have the opportunity to do that this afternoon by bringing on the Migration Act amendment bill and adopting the amendments that the coalition has put forward that would enable them to do this.

The price of their failure has been chaos, cost blow-outs and tragedy. Those failures should hang heavily on the heads of every single member on that side of the House. Those who encouraged the government to abolish the policies of the Howard government must now take responsibility for the cost, for the chaos and for the tragedy that we have seen occur as a result of their failures.

The coalition offers this government an alternative that deals with the issues that came up in the High Court to ensure that the protections that the member for Berowra put into that act in 2001 can be sustained. We can achieve that by ensuring signatory to the convention is a litmus test on those protections and we can create the legal certainty that is necessary. If the government does not bring this bill in this afternoon I think it is time to the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship to improve his quality of life. I think it is time for this minister, who does not enjoy confidence of this House, to do the honourable thing unless he brings this bill, which he has sponsored, into the House. He brought it into this place and he should now face the test of this place on his own bill, or he should do the honourable thing—and improve his quality of life, as he has so often said—and resign from his office. But that will only allow another to come and put more failed policy in place. Bring on the bill. (Time expired)

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

I am pleased to once again, on a daily basis, have the opportunity to speak on the procedural motion for the suspension of standing orders moved by the Leader of the Opposition—once again moved at 10 to 3 because Playschool starts on ABC TV at 3 pm. Playschool as politics: as was tweeted out before, 'If I was Playschool I'd be asking for a new support act!' That is what people out there are saying, because what we have heard is not up to the quality of Little Ted and Big Ted. What we have heard from those opposite is once again a concentration just on the politics, not on the substance. Let us have a look at the substance of what they are talking about here. When we introduced the migration bills we offered to the opposition a vote on it prior to question time on the day on which they were debated, the Thursday before last. What they did was stack the speakers list so that we had five hours and 13 minutes of debate. But they have gone further because today they have listed 29 opposition speakers to address this issue, for 15 minutes each. We know that maths is not their strong point, because they are searching for the $70 billion they have in that black hole, but let me inform them that that adds up to over seven hours of speakers just from the opposition. They know that on Thursday there are four hours and 45 minutes dedicated to government business, including the private members business that they insisted on. If you go through the Hansard of this morning, you will find opposition members seeking leave to address issues—many important issues. The member for Hughes gave a good speech, by leave, about the human rights of Coptic Christians in Egypt. There were a range of other issues.

During the bill on work safety the relevant shadow minister did not just speak once during the consideration in detail stage but spoke twice to the same amendments that she had moved. The opposition called for quorums to be formed three times. That took up 12 minutes of time. Then the Manager of Opposition Business had the hide to come into this parliament and move a point of order saying the parliament should have been shut down and asked the Deputy Speaker at the time to consult with you, Mr Speaker, about whether it was inappropriate that parliament be allowed to continue. Indeed, the very bill that is before the parliament right now on education is a bill in which the Manager of Opposition Business has carriage. He knows that we offered yesterday to refer it to the Main Committee because it is a budget bill and a bill they say they are not opposed to. But this man's fragile ego is so big he did not want to speak in the Main Committee. No, he wanted to take up the time of the main chamber. The hypocrisy is writ large. This is a budget bill that needs passage.

Yesterday, what we saw throughout the day from the opposition was speaker after speaker being added to the speakers list. The fact is that the Leader of the Opposition says he is keen on a vote but he does not have a good record of turning up when votes are held. He missed the vote on health bills—despite being the health minister at the time—on 3 June 2008. He also missed votes on 8 September 2009, and on 3 February 2010. He slept through the economic stimulus bills. He missed a number of other votes on important broadband and electoral reform bills. He missed votes on the Nation-building Funds Bill and on the road charges bills. On 4 June 2009 he missed four votes on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.

What we have seen all week is, once again, the opposition talking down the economy. We have seen that the Leader of the Opposition is all about the politics and never about the substance. Perhaps a quote that puts that best was when he compared losing office as a minister to losing a parent. He said:

We all need grief counselling … It's like a bereavement. Not as bad as losing a child or a spouse but up there with losing a parent.

That is what the Leader of the Opposition had to say about losing office. That is how obsessed he is with the politics. It is always about the politics. What we are seeing today is the continuation of the longest dummy spit in Australia's political history. That would not be so bad except that the whole of Australia is having to put up with it.

Even when the Leader of the Opposition says he supports principles, he walks away. He says he supports offshore processing but he has walked away from that. He says he supports the rights of governments to have policies to control our borders but he walks away from that just like he walks away from everything because he is so determined to be negative and to say 'no'. No matter what the cost, he knows that the decision of the High Court means that the only place offshore processing can take place with certainty is New Zealand. That he knows full well. In spite of that, so short term is he—he is very cocky; he thinks he is almost there. That night in August, when he thought he had won the election, he thought he got what he saw as his dessert. He thought that he had a right to the prime ministership of this country. Ever since then, because of his incapacity to negotiate with people and to be someone who could be seen as being broad and capable of truly representing something other than his short-minded sectarian view, which is why he lost the negotiations as well as lost the election, we have been forced to put up with this dummy spit. He is all division and no vision.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Seniors) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, the Leader of the House has placed a slur into this debate with the use of the word 'sectarian' and should be made to withdraw. I ask him to withdraw.

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

Order! The Leader of the House will withdraw.

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

I withdraw. Speaking about Liberal Party sectarianism! In terms of—

Opposition members interjecting—

I have withdrawn!

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

Order! The Leader of the House has withdrawn. The Leader of the House has the call.

Opposition members interjecting —

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

I'm half Italian-half Irish, mate—let's get real—so don't accuse me of anti-Catholicism, mate! Fair dinkum. Get real.

Opposition members interjecting—

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

Order! The Leader of the House has the call. He will ignore interjections.

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

The fact is, one of the things I learnt at St Mary's Cathedral was about social justice, was about standing up for my principles, was about having conviction—which is why I am prepared to stand up on these matters of principle and not just say no. What the Leader of the Opposition is attempting to do to politics in this country with his language, with his actions, with his motivations, is simply to be negative and to turn it into the sort of behaviour that we saw in the galleries yesterday. A lack of respect for our parliamentary processes, a lack of respect for democracy, because he believes it is all about him. Well it is not. This country is much better than that and they are much too good to have you in any leadership position.

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

Order! The time allotted for this debate has expired.

Question put.

The House divided. [15:20]

(The Speaker—Mr Harry Jenkins)

Question negatived.

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

I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.