Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

Senator, I am happy to debate those changes with you. I am happy to do that at any time. But today you have the opportunity to do one thing. You have the opportunity to do something or to just sit there and say: 'We won again, because we stopped anyone doing anything positive. We were negative and we stopped anything effective happening.' You take great pride, it seems, in saying that. What I ask you to do, Senator, is put aside your politics and your self-interest, and do something that all the people who provide advice to government have said will assist in slowing the flow of people to this country. That is what I ask of you.

We have bent over backwards in accepting the amendments regarding Nauru. We accepted a proposition that provides some compromise. But what we are asking you to do today is to vote for a bill that has a one-year sunset clause. We are asking you to rise above the politics and say to yourselves, 'It's a bill that lasts for one year that allows us to try to see if we can't make a difference.' That is all we ask of you—to support a bill for one year that allows the elected government of the day to try to make a difference and prevent people drowning. We are asking you to give us that cooperation for one year. It does not stop you arguing your political position. It does not stop you doing or saying whatever you like. But it does allow the government—