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

And we see the glass jaw demonstrated again. We see the glass jaw on display yet again from those opposite. Complete glass jaws. They just can't deal with the fact that Peter Dutton, the Leader of the Opposition, has demonstrated that he actually is strong and decisive in this polity space.

The glass jaw is on display yet again. Let's go back to last week, and I will take the interjection, Senator Ayres, when the Minister for Home Affairs on 16 November said, 'The opposition never wrote laws as tough as this.' On the very same day they said those words, Peter Dutton, the Leader of the Opposition, presented them with six clearly very reasonable amendments to their legislation, which they accepted—in fact, they drafted them as government amendments. So 'they've never written laws as tough as this', but we can toughen them up from opposition because we've been the adults in the room. We've been the ones in charge when these difficult decisions, where you have the interaction of the High Court and the legislature, which we all understand is a relationship—in a nation like Australia, where we operate under the rule of law, it is a relationship and a power balance. There is a division of responsibilities. The High Court can make decisions in relation to legislation from this place, and rightly so. However, good governments, governments where the adults are in charge, prepare. They understand what the limitations of their responsibilities are, and they act within those limitations to ensure the safety of the Australian people. That is what Peter Dutton in government demonstrated he could do, and that is what Labor in government have demonstrated they are completely incapable of doing.

We have a government that says the opposition never wrote laws as tough as these, and then they immediately accept our amendments. And now we've got them bringing in this particular piece of legislation, the Australian Citizenship Amendment (Citizenship Repudiation) Bill, dealing with a High Court decision on—I'm trying to remember the date, Senator O'Sullivan. June 2022 rings a bell. That's a little while ago. In fact, it was when this Labor government came to power. When this Labor government came to power they had this particular issue to deal with. They criticise us, but they've been in government now for—well, for far too long. They've been in government for the entire period that this High Court ruling has been active, and now, in the shadow of the NZYQ case, in the shadow of the Labor government demonstrating an inability to deal with a serious national security public safety issue with any sort of alacrity, they—in wanting to talk tough and look tough, in wanting to live up to this rhetoric that the opposition never wrote laws as tough as this—rushed this particular bill into parliament.