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

It is, in fact, not an indication of a special deal as claimed. I will remind Senator Back of when these mobile teams were used previously. They were used from 2003 for operations in Beirut, Nairobi, Pretoria, Cairo, Bangkok and Jakarta. Who was in government in 2003? I cannot recall. This is standard practice that has been applied in a range of cases as it has been applied tens of times by the former government. It is standard immigration practice to support Indonesia, and just because the Australian reports it as part of the quota of asylum seeker stories it is required to file each day does not mean that it is newsworthy. I remind you that the only time there has not been a front page story about asylum seekers in the last few weeks, to the best of my knowledge, was the day the people came off the Oceanic Viking. Putting that to one side, this is standard practice that has been used on many occasions. (Time expired)