Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

It is obvious that when you are in strife and you are not making headway you resort to the old slogans—the slogans of the past. It is just like they reverted to the policies of the past. When they were confronted with the fact that they had no policy and that they supported ours as we made adjustments to our policy and how we treated refugees, the best they could do was to try to go back to temporary protection visas, which of course had proved to be a complete failure and had done nothing to stop arrivals or to see those people returned to their country of origin. I reiterate: there is no special treatment. What we have done is encourage the UNHCR to process these people. They will be offered resettlement in accordance with UNHCR processes and resettlement will be sought— (Time expired)