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

Excuse me, Madam Acting Deputy President, I've got to stop laughing. Can I say to the previous speaker: well, what a refreshingly different speech. In fact, I almost think it might be a speech that Senator McKim copied from me because, for years, I've been saying, 'Don't blame the coalition,' as Senator McKim always does, 'blame the people who set it up, the Labor Party.' Of course, Senator McKim's never understood that point until Batman comes along. The rank hypocrisy of the Greens was shown in that speech supposedly concerned about people they call distressed and disadvantaged on Manus and Nauru, but there was not a word about them, only about the Batman by-election and the huge fight they're having with the Labor Party for that particular seat. I cannot believe that any party claiming any responsibility or honesty could, for years, have sided with the Labor Party.

You'll recall, Madam Acting Deputy President Kitching, that it was the Greens that kept in power the Labor Party, which set up Manus and Nauru. Congratulations, Senator McKim—when you said you were going to deliver some facts, I laughed audibly—you did deliver some facts, but it is the first time you have ever, ever, ever accepted the reality: it was the Labor Party who started Nauru and Manus and they were supported by the Greens political party. The Greens political party come with dirty hands to this debate and always have.

I can only simply chuckle to myself how this speech supposedly on humanitarian efforts in Nauru and Manus turned entirely on the Batman by-election, with no pretence made. Senator McKim, in one of his rare honest speeches, admitted that it was all about voting Green in the Batman by-election. One of the great benefits for me is that I don't have to vote in Batman—because I just don't know who I could vote for if my party didn't stand a candidate.

On the basis that this might have been a sensible debate about Australia's migration policy over the years, I did want to mention some real facts: under the Labor government, supported by the Greens' political party—it was a Labor-Greens alliance, you might remember—50,000 people arrived on over 800 boats; there were 1,200 deaths that we know of; over 8,000 illegal migration arrivals—children—were detained while Labor and the Greens were in power; and, at the height of the policy failure of the Labor and the Greens' political parties at that time, there were 10,201 people held in detention, including 1,992 children—