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

Whether it is international law or not, with great respect, Senator Hanson-Young, is irrelevant. You argued that the parliament was doing a certain thing by passing the legislation last year. You are now arguing that it is perfectly possible for people to characterise the parliament's actions in a quite different way. You are having your cake and eating it as well, with great respect.

I do not want to delay the Senate any longer. I want to reaffirm that we on this side of the chamber believe that the parliament has decided that people smuggling should be a criminal activity and that that criminality should not be in any way tempered or watered down by virtue of the fact that some of those people being smuggled may transpire to be genuine refugees. It is important for the parliament's will in this respect to be clear because there are presently proceedings before the courts of Australia where that issue is being tested. There should be no doubt that those who smuggle people should be subject to prosecution and, if the facts are found to support the case, convicted of those offences. That is what the parliament ensures by passing this legislation today. But some of the arguments being used both in support of the legislation and in opposition to it are, with the greatest respect, spurious in the extreme.