John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Here are the figures: 1,637 people were processed under the Pacific solution—Senator Cash, please do not make me laugh!—and 484 people, 30 per cent, were sent back to their country of origin. Now, I know, Mr Deputy President, what a genius you are at mathematics—you know that, if 100 per cent is a full lot, and you take off 30 per cent, that leaves 70 per cent. So how can they say that 95 per cent came to Australia? That is simply wrong—30 per cent were sent back to their country; 705 people out of the 1,637, 43 per cent, were resettled in Australia. The balance of 27 per cent were sent to other countries. So when we have these untruths, these misleading, falsified statements by the Labor Party saying 95 per cent of those who went to Nauru came to Australia, that is simply wrong. But truth is something I know that many on that side of the chamber use very carelessly. They are not very familiar with it. We only have to look at the great debate now being introduced into the other chamber, about the carbon tax—the one we will 'never have under a government I lead'. That is why I will go back to those polling figures. That is why they are like that: because the people have lost faith; they do not trust this government. That is why they were breaking all records on those low ends of the scale of polling: because of the way they have treated the Australian people, and what they are saying is not true. This is a serious problem.