House debates Questions without Notice

Immigration Detention

Monday, 3 June 2024 House of Representatives

Dan Tehan

Dan Tehan Wannon, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship

2:07 pm

My question is to the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs. Will the minister release the advice that led him to say drones were being used to monitor detainees?

Andrew Giles

Andrew Giles Scullin, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs

I thank the shadow minister for his question again. I've answered his question already. I relied on information provided by my department and—

Milton Dick

Milton Dick Speaker

Resume your seat. I'm just going to repeat what I said last week in terms of us now being14 seconds into the question. I anticipate it's going to be a point on relevance, so, whatever happens from now on, any further clarification won't be possible, but he has the call.

Dan Tehan

Dan Tehan Wannon, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship

It's relevance, Speaker. The question was very direct and very simple: will you release the advice?

Milton Dick

Milton Dick Speaker

I have been following this issue quite carefully in terms of relevance, and—

Order! The Prime Minister will cease interjecting. The minister was asked a specific question, but it is difficult to take a point of order on relevance when I don't know what is going to happen for the remainder—two minutes and 45 seconds. So, correct: at this stage he hasn't answered your question. And I appreciate you'd like a yes/no answer, but, as the shadow minister knows, under the standing orders that is not eligible, so I'm just going to ask the—

The Prime Minister will cease interjecting.

Order! The Member for Deakin will join him as well. We just want to be able to deal with this issue of relevance. The minister now has two minutes and 48 seconds to answer the question. I'm just going to make sure he is being directly relevant in the answer that he is giving.

Andrew Giles

Andrew Giles Scullin, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs

I think I have answered the question. But what we've seen here is the shadow minister loving it at the dispatch box. He really does. What it tells us is that his real target is the record of the Leader of the Opposition here, because he knows, as we know, that, if the Leader of the Opposition were held to the standard that he seeks to hold others to, he would not have lasted a day in the job. This is a bloke who trashed our immigration system, who trashed integrity, who trashed enforcement and who let nearly 1,300 people out not via a court and not via a tribunal, without any constraints on their behaviour. That's the measure of the man.

The shadow minister obviously agrees with me.

Milton Dick

Milton Dick Speaker

Order! The number for Petrie will cease interjecting so I can hear from the member from Werriwa.