Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

They'd still be doing nothing today. They'd be doing nothing in a week, they'd be doing nothing in three weeks, they'd be doing nothing in a month. That was the government's plan. It's on the record, and nobody opposite can deny it.

When this issue first arose, as I said, on Wednesday last week, the shadow minister for home affairs, Senator Paterson, immediately called for a legislated response. On Thursday, the government told us that the individual in the High Court decision had been released, but, when asked about the potential release of other individuals in the cohort, Senator Watt said, 'We're not a government that acts on decisions that haven't had reasons released.' But, in fact, we found out on Friday that they had been acting in the sense that large numbers of high-risk individuals were being released. So they weren't going to make any response until they had the full decision from the High Court, but they were releasing the detainees.

On Monday Minister Giles told us that 80 individuals had been released subject to a range of strict mandatory visa conditions, yet yesterday Senator Wong admitted that the consequences of breaching these new visa conditions were ultimately unenforceable because breaching a visa requires that an individual be detained pending deportation, which the High Court ruled is not applicable for this cohort of people. So, when they were released, many of them, I understand, were released with no visas at all. They were just released—open the door, off you go. Now, if you haven't got a visa, you can't have any visa conditions, so you can't have any consequences for breaching visa conditions. That will be remedied, hopefully, in this bill—and, as everyone knows, we've only received the bill this morning, and we are still looking at a series of amendments.

To again remind those listening: this is not merely a cohort of asylum seekers, as some on the other side like to pretend. These are people who have been involved in serious crime or serious activities of violence. As Senator Cash talked about, in this cohort are contract killers, child rapists, murderers, people who have conducted terrorist-like acts and people who have been engaged in the most egregious cases of domestic violence. Again I point out that those on this side, immediately the court handed down its decision, called for a legislated response, because that is what we are here for.

Now, there is a separation of powers. There is a role for an independent court system, and obviously we all respect the role and the rulings of the High Court. But we are also legislators. We are here to deal with situations like this and deal with them in a way that is timely and upholds our first responsibility as senators, as members of parliament: to protect the Australian people. That is why we are here. The fact that this moral hazard, this loophole, has been created in our visa system and our processing of people coming from overseas does require and effective response.

The government failed the first test immediately. They were planning to sit on their hands for months until the full decision was handed down by the High Court—unacceptable for any government to take that sort of response. And now, finally, dragged kicking and screaming, they have brought forward legislation, again keeping parliamentarians in the dark for as long as possible. As Senator Cash said, she would have been here last night—she would have been here all night—if that's what it would have taken to see the bill earlier. But, no, it was this morning—handed a copy of the bill at 7.15 am.

Of course we will support the bill, but we will also look to strengthen the bill, because it simply isn't strong enough. There are some obvious improvements that can be made that we will be moving. But, as I said, we will ultimately support the legislation. We sincerely hope that the government is serious, as Senator Wong said, about—