Mark Arbib (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Government Service Delivery) Share this | Hansard source

In terms of my statement, at no time did I talk about the hard Right; I talked about hardliners, so I do not intend to retract the comment. In terms of the hardliners on the other side of the chamber, they do not believe in global warming, they still believe in Work Choices and now they are returning to their roots in terms of immigration and border protection. Australia went down a very dark route when John Howard and the former government played wedge politics and dog-whistled on border protection. It looks like we are going back again. Here comes the new Liberal Party-National Party scare campaign and Senator Fierravanti-Wells is at the helm. So you have to ask: why are they referring back to immigration and asylum seekers? Why are they running a scare campaign? They are desperate. They are losing the debate on the economy, they are losing the debate on climate change and they are losing the debate on workplace relations, so they are back to their typical scare campaign.

The worrying thing about the scare campaign is that it is really a political game based on opportunism. It is not based on fact; it is based on fear. If you listen to Senator Fierravanti-Wells and some other members of the coalition frontbench, you would think that there is a huge difference between our position on border protection and immigration and the coalition’s position. Look at what the shadow minister, Sharman Stone, the member for Murray, said on Sky News on 16 April, straight after—this was minutes after—the Ashmore Reef explosion:

You can’t slash funds, you can’t take your eye off the ball, you can’t announce a softer policy and then expect people not to lose their lives through people smuggling ...

On 17 April, the Leader of the Opposition, the member for Wentworth, said:

There is no doubt the impression has been created that we are now more accommodating or taking a less hard line towards people smuggling than ... in the past.

Senator Fierravanti-Wells said we have given the green light to asylum seekers.