Amanda Vanstone (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I am very proud to be a member of a party where in the party room you can have full, free and frank discussions. I encourage it. In fact, I welcome the battle of ideas. I think it is the great conversation of life. And I am glad I am not in that other party where there was a member of parliament who expressed a view that others did not agree with. Where did they find him? With his lights nearly punched out, in the backstreets of Sydney. He had to be put into hospital. So, Senator Forshaw, I do not think you are in a position to be asking us about free and frank discussions in the party room. Was I there for the whole time? No, I was not. Why? Because I was undertaking my duties as Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs and conducting a citizenship ceremony, for a brief period of time, to welcome refugees to Australia as citizens, something which I hoped someone like you, Senator, would have supported.