Mark Furner (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to make a contribution to this debate about migration as well. I want to, firstly, indicate that it is one of those areas that I have spoken about on numerous occasions in this chamber and it is an area that can be highly charged and unfortunately at times politicised. Unfortunately at other times we see the creeping of xenophobia into the discussion. It is an area that needs to be critiqued in respect of what it is about.

Before I get to the relevant points, I want to make comment on some of the previous contributions from speakers from the opposition. Firstly, Senator Scullion spoke about the Horn of Africa. There is a terrible situation happening over there. That is why we need sympathetic and reasonable management of how we protect our borders and deal with those poor souls who come from situations that we are aware of in the Horn of Africa.

Senator Cash spoke about reports of headlines in the newspapers about what is happening in our caucus today. Yes, there was a caucus meeting today where metho­dically and reasonably the members of the Labor caucus worked through a process of discussing this issue. At the end of the day, we worked up and supported a solution that will see an outcome of presenting legislation to the House of Representatives and eventually to this chamber for a resolution on how we deal with migration.

It really astounds me how not just Senator Cash—I do respect Senator Cash; she is a good performer from the opposition—but in general most of those people in the opposition here will tend to rely on the media. I guess that is why there is a campaign out there currently wanting some reform in the media. I will give just one example of why you cannot always rely upon the media. Just last week, I was quoted in the Age as having made some comments about the introduction of or the support for the Nauru solution. It was not even me in the photograph; it was a colleague. That clearly demonstrates that those opposite should never rely upon media headlines in the newspapers.

We know that there has been a High Court decision in relation to our Malaysia solution, which has been dealt with. Subject to that decision, we need to work out future positions on handling migration and border protection. That is why, in caucus today, we had a discussion dealing with this particular issue. The High Court judgment established a new interpretation of migration law, which is why we need to work through a process of managing this. Legal advice from the Solicitor General cast further doubt over offshore processing of asylum seekers, wherever it might occur. It could be anywhere in the Pacific that we as a government decide in the future to deal with this issue. Indeed, talking about Nauru under the Howard government, the Solicitor-General has indicated that, most likely, that decision would have been invalid as well. This is an opportunity for the opposition to work with us in a bipartisan way to make sure we get a solution, because one day in the future they may be in a position where they might be in government and they will need to deal with this issue.