Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

Certainly, Mr Acting Deputy President Bernardi. While the actions of former Prime Minister, Mr Kevin Rudd, and the current Prime Minister, Mr Scott Morrison, stopped the boats, the current minister, Minister Dutton, has overseen nearly 100,000 people arrive by airplane and claim asylum in Australia. Over 90 per cent of these people have been found not to be refugees. The egregious exploitation those people face when they're in Australia includes being paid as little as $4 an hour or being forced into sexual servitude. There are the record-breaking 230,000 people on bridging visas in Australia, and citizenship and spouse visa processing times are blowing out to two to three years.

Labor will not support stripping even more rights away from people who are in Australia and who have already been declared refugees. These people have already had their claims for protection approved by the government, and if the government insists their status be reviewed then those reviews should be subject to the right safeguards and oversights to ensure that vulnerable people are not returned to prosecution. As such, Labor will be supporting this motion.