Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

Talk about excuses coming from the Leader of the Government in the Senate at the moment, Senator Gallagher, who is sitting there. Wow, what excuses. You have one responsibility as a government—to keep Australians safe—and you have failed miserably. You talk about legal briefings. Well, guess what? We were in negotiations for a legal briefing. The situation we are currently in is, for the record, a direct result of the draconian conditions around the provision of the advice in hard copy only. Guess where the shadow minister is? In his electorate. And guess what? They have said he's got to go to the CPO, which is a 3½ hour drive to actually access the advice. The Attorney-General of Australia will not leave the closeted conditions of his office or have someone drive out and give our shadow minister a copy of the advice.

We were conducting these negotiations, Senator Gallagher—through you, Chair—in good faith, but, with what you've put on the record today, clearly the government wants to only play political games and nothing more, and that is an absolute disgrace. The relevant shadow minister has been told that unless he drives 3½ hours—because apparently technology doesn't assist—the department can't actually get the advice to him in a confidential manner. We were negotiating with this government in good faith. We'd had one briefing yesterday morning on this, and we were negotiating with this government in good faith. But clearly that good faith has been thrown out the window this morning because you want to play political games.

Then, of course, we have the statement this morning from the Attorney-General of Australia. You have to be kidding me. Let's be clear on what this statement doesn't do. There is nothing in this statement that addresses the fundamental issue that the release of every single one of the 148 detainees was a government decision. Despite what they want to say, it was a decision based on an assessment made by the government of what the High Court had said in its NZYQ decision and a decision based on an assessment by the government in advance of the High Court's statement of reasons. The Attorney-General; the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs; and the Minister for Home Affairs have now resorted to this, and it really is pathetic—seriously. Honestly, someone doing work experience in the Attorney-General's office could have drafted this. It is that pathetic of a statement—to cover their own inadequacies in this regard. Instead of resorting to this kind of petulant rubbish, quite frankly they should be standing in front of the cameras today and apologising to the Australian people for the mess that they have now got Australians in.

Let's have a look at the front pages across Australia today.