Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

What my colleague invited me to do is to quote their own leader on this very issue to point out their utter opportunism in attacking this government for kowtowing to Indonesia—which is absolutely wrong and which has been rejected. I do not think that they have convinced anyone but their own side in regard to that. Let us quote what the Labor Party’s leader, Mr Beazley, the member for Brand, said in regard to relationships with Indonesia on this very issue. On 16 October, he said:

Australia can only stop the flood of boats by fixing our relationship with Indonesia. A real solution must be found in Jakarta.

In talking about border protection earlier in that same period, he stated:

In the end, the only solution to the problem we now confront resides around the relationship that we have with Indonesia and the attitudes that develop in this region to illegal people-smuggling.

He went on to say:

What we need to do is exercise a bit of leadership, because we want circumstances where people who come here illegally go back to the point they came from and get processed there.

He continued:

That is the true disincentive for people coming down in the way in which they have been doing. Everything else has been tried. Let’s try that.

In other words, his solution was to tow the boats back to West Papua, Indonesia or wherever they came from. That quote is an indication that he wanted to tow the boats back—but, of course, we all know that was an opportunist quote at the time. We all know that what you are running in here is also opportunist. We reject the flimsy arguments and the opportunism that the opposite side walk in here with with regard to border protection. We are acting in the national interest.