Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I have an interest in this particular bill, the Migration Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014, as all senators will have. As an Australian citizen I am very keen to ensure that Australia continues to have a very beneficial and worthwhile immigration program, one that is well-ordered, fair, open and accountable, and one that allows people who fit with Australian law to come into our country. I have a keen interest in this subject.

In passing, I must say that Mr Morrison has done an absolutely magnificent job as migration minister and has put the Australian immigration process back on track so that we are able to bring in properly qualified people who apply for immigration to Australia in the appropriate way and meet the rules. Also, under Mr Morrison, now, we have come back to an ordered arrangement whereby those 13,000-odd refugees we take every year are chosen on the basis of their status under the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. They are genuine refugees and we take them in an ordered fashion. Under the Labor regime, you were able to push in. If you had the money to pay someone to put you at the front of the queue you got in; but those who have been waiting for years in squalid refugee camps right around the world were left languishing thanks to the Australian Labor Party and the Greens political party.

The Greens were very keen to support the people smugglers. They were very keen to support those who had the money and the wherewithal to get a passage—an illegal passage—into Australia. In doing so, they put those who had been waiting for their turn to get to the promised land for years back yet another year. I give all credit to Mr—