Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have been very proud to sit in this place, the House of Representatives of the Parliament of Australia, and see this parliament at its finest—this parliament coming together for a national cause; this parliament coming together to do what's right for Australians; this parliament coming together, joining, combining and unifying, to help this nation, in the national interest.

I'll give you a couple of examples. When there were the pins in strawberries, in 2018, this parliament passed emergency legislation to make sure that we did the right thing to stop that from happening anymore. Then this year we had the Russian Federation wanting to lease a site not far from the house of democracy—this place. And again, we came together to do what was right in the national interest.

Today was not one of those days. We should have come together, perhaps even have been recalled, last week, when the High Court made the decision that it did: to release more than 80 rapists, paedophiles and murderers—people who are not of Australian birth; people who are not Australian citizens. We should have been better. But unfortunately, we were not. Today, we had a piece of legislation—to which we did not have the ability to move any amendments—pass this House, and it's not going to do what is required. We should have been better than that!