Kate Lundy (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister Assisting for Industry and Innovation) Share this | Hansard source

It is no surprise that Senator Cash will seize the opportunity, even when there is no story running, to ask a question about immigration. As usual, the characteristic of the question puts in place a very punitive flavour over those who are spending time in detention centres—and I know that Senator Cash's concern is far from the welfare of those who are in detention. What we have is a situation in many of the detention centres that is challenging when there are large numbers of people being detained. But I would like to assure the Senate that every effort is made to ensure that they come through that detention process as quickly as possible. With the health, identity and security checks that we put in place, what we know is that systematically we are moving people into community detention, through bridging visas, and other things to make sure that those—