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

My question is to the Acting Prime Minister. I remind him that since the government announced the reopening of the Nauru processing centre almost 2,000 illegal arrivals have reached Australia. When will the government admit that, unless it also adopts temporary protection visas and turns back the boats where it is safe to do so, people smugglers will still have a product to sell and the boats will still keep coming?

Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do thank the opposition leader for his question but I am not sure that the member for Wentworth will thank him for it. The member for Wentworth had the temerity to point out last week the entire negative approach of this opposition—not just talking down the economy but being out there attacking, attacking, attacking, with the Leader of the Opposition making negative points every time he stands up.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Acting Prime Minister will refer to the question before the chair.

Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He knows very well, Madam Deputy Speaker, that it was the actions of the coalition in this House that delayed our getting offshore processing going more quickly. They came into the House with their negative approach and they delayed the positive proposals that we put on the table to process in Nauru and to process in Malaysia at the same time. The consequence of that has been all of the tragedy that we have seen during that delay. The government has responded comprehensively to the Houston report and has put in place all the approaches that it recommended. It is simply, once again, deliberately deceptive of this Leader of the Opposition to pretend that somehow that report may have actually recommended temporary protection visas. It is yet another example of him being deceptive and not necessarily telling the full story about events that have occurred in the past. There was no support whatsoever in the Houston report for temporary protection visas.

We have got the processing up and running as quickly as we possibly could, and we have done that since we got the legislation passed through the parliament. We have seen further evidence of that today with the statement made by the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship. We are proceeding as quickly as we possibly can because we do want to save lives. Putting this process in place in the comprehensive way that we are will save lives. What we have to do is stop the boats with a fair dinkum policy—the fair dinkum policy that was recommended by the Houston inquiry and that we are putting in place right across the board. This includes an increase in the overall intake to ensure that people have no incentive to jump on boats and risk their lives coming to Australia; it makes sure they can get in by coming through our offshore processes. That is what we are doing. This is a fair dinkum approach to a big public policy problem, but what we see from those opposite is the continued negative approach of the Leader of the Opposition. (Time expired)