Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise to contribute to the debate on the Migration Amendment (Visa Maximum Numbers Determinations) Bill 2013. I note that the bill relates to a cohort of in excess of 30,000 people who came here under the former government's failed border protection policies and whom the former speaker and person who introduced the bill into this place states are 'in limbo, in poverty and without work rights'. When the mover of this piece of legislation refers to those people as being 'in limbo, in poverty and without work rights', it is important to ensure that the Senate understands and that Hansard records that Senator Hanson-Young was a member of the former government. The Greens and the Australian Labor Party were in a formal written alliance. The Greens were part of the government under which these people came to Australia. It was the former government, of which Senator Hanson-Young was a part, that ensured these people remained in limbo because, under the former government, these people were dumped into the community, and it was the former government which failed to commence the processing of these people. If there is any allegation that these people remain in poverty then that allegation should be directed squarely at the former government, which, again, Senator Hanson-Young was a part of.

In relation to Senator Hanson-Young's statement that these people are without work rights, I would again remind the Senate—and for the benefit of Hansardthat it was the former government, of which Senator Hanson-Young was a part, which placed these people into the community without processing them, and it was the former government's decision to deny them work rights. Had Senator Hanson-Young and the now opposition not disallowed the government's temporary protection visas in the Senate last week, these people would now have work rights. So I think it is a little bit rich of Senator Hanson-Young, now that she is on the other side of the chamber, to come into this place and pretend that the last 5½ years did not happen. This bill is a direct result of the actions of Senator Hanson-Young when she was in government with the Australian Labor Party and was complicit in—