Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Paterson. I am aware of those remarks that were made by Justice Gleeson in the High Court. I'm also aware of some remarks that Senator Paterson made in this chamber the other day while Senator Wong was answering a question. He interjected and made the point that the High Court's ruling overturned 20 years of precedent. It seems that at least at the time Senator Paterson made those interjections, he was aware that a High Court decision had been in place with a clear ruling on this matter of law for 20 years and that the decision that ultimately was received by the full bench of the High Court overturned those 20 years of precedents. For Senator Paterson to come in now and pretend that he had a crystal ball that this decision was going to end up the way it did is completely disingenuous and goes against the comments he made earlier in the week.

In addition to that, what we also know is the opposition leader, Mr Dutton, knew for a number of years that this was an issue when he was the Minister for Home Affairs, and he did not do anything to address the issue either. Our urgent legislation that we introduced today—