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

The government's position is that the human rights provisions in terms of the refugee conventions have to be upheld. That is very much what this government is about. Our position in regard to Malaysia is that the protections are built into the agreement with the Malaysian government and that there is a provision for the UNHCR to be actively engaged in the processes involved, to an extent that is beyond anything that ever occurred before this agreement had been entered into. On the other hand, we have the Liberal Party suddenly discovering these issues of human rights and proposing a policy to actually send the boats back to Indonesia, to send the boats back on the high seas, despite the incredible dangers involved, to a country that is not a signatory to the human rights conventions or the refugee conventions. That is clearly a major contradiction in the way in which the Liberal Party has approached this issue.