Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research) Share this | Hansard source

What I am aware of is that the government is very clear: we are intending to amend the Migration Act to ensure that we are able to provide the opportunities to work with Malaysia so that we can ensure that persons who do arrive will be able to be treated properly in Malaysia. We are also very clear that the opposition's policy in regard to Nauru is totally ineffective and very costly. What we do know is that the strategies pursued by those opposite—they will have their opportunity; they will get their opportunity to respond to the govern­ment's invitation. We look forward with interest to what the opposition has to say about amending the Migration Act. What we do know is that the policies that were pursued by the coalition when it was gov­ernment failed dismally and that we saw some 8,000 people encouraged to get onto rickety boats—