Gary Humphries (ACT, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Citizenship) Share this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Senator Evans. I refer the minister to recent figures from the UNHCR which show that asylum applications in Australia increased by more than 25 per cent in the nine months to September last year, whilst global applications have increased by only five per cent. Given that Australia has had a surge five times greater than the international increase, will the minister correct the record and reverse his and the Prime Minister’s repeated claims that the arrivals are due to so-called push factors rather than the pull factors in Labor’s open door policy?