George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Hanson-Young, you do not have a monopoly on compassion, you know. These measures, which were introduced by the previous Labor government and continued by the current government, were designed as part of a solution to a problem. The previous government, because of the lack of other measures which we have now introduced, failed to solve the problem, but this is nevertheless an important element in the solution to the problem. Please, Senator Hanson-Young, do not insult everybody else in this Senate by suggesting that there is anyone in this chamber who is glad to see children in detention. Of course there is not—not one person. But what we want to do is to stop the people-smuggling trade, a trade which, as we know, during the six years of the Labor government cost the lives of more than 1,100 people, many of them children. This measure, supported by the opposition, gives further legal strength to arrangements that the opposition, when they were the government, put in place. We want to see children out of detention. We have released more than 90 per cent of the children who were in detention.