Linda Reynolds (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I know what compassion is and I know what compassion is to me. Compassion is not opening our borders and putting people smugglers back in business. In 2001, I saw firsthand the consequences of the immorality and the evilness of people smugglers and what they do and how they treat people. They have no respect for human life. Humans and children are not commodities. For the Greens to suggest that they have the upper hand or that they are the only ones who have any compassion or morality in this chamber is simply wrong. Compassion is keeping control of our borders, putting people smugglers out of business and not having our Defence personnel fish 1,200 bodies out of the water.

Madam Deputy President Lines, if you were to show any of my colleagues in the Greens what the consequences of their policies would be, they would change their minds. Twelve hundred people drowning, including children, is not compassion. Compassion is keeping control of our borders, taking control of who we let in. By doing that, by stopping the boats and by closing down the detention centres, we now have an extra 3,000 humanitarian visa applications approved here. These are people who deserve to be here in Australia. These are the most needy, and we keep control of our borders. So, please, spare all of us in this chamber your pious sermonising, lecturing and demonisation.

I hate to tell my colleagues in the Greens this, but there are bad people in this world and they exploit compassion. We saw that when the borders were reopened a few years ago. They exploited that. They sell the promise of coming here to Australia. People die; people never get here. It is wrong, it is cruel and it is evil, and we need to keep control of our borders. So, please, no more piety, no more 'we're the only ones with compassion in this world'. You are not. You might have a very different idea of what compassion looks like, but when you have seen the consequences of terrorism, as I have, and the consequences of—