Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer the Prime Minister to the fact that 30 per cent of asylum seekers processed through the Pacific solution were returned home, compared to less than two per cent since the Rudd-Gillard government abolished the Howard government's border protection regime. When will the Prime Minister finally admit that the Howard government got it right and that when Labor came to power they found a solution and created a problem?

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In answer to the shadow minister's question I will repeat what I have said already in question time today and what I had cause to say yesterday. I understand that there are sharply divided views in this parliament about refugee and asylum seeker policy. I understand that. Indeed, our nation has lived with that for many long years—with sharply divided views on a number of these questions—and I suspect we will live with sharply divided views both in this place and in the community broadly for many long years to come.

Against that backdrop of community division and different views both within this parliament and beyond, government needs to address the task and always have in its mind what is best in our national interest to secure our borders and to ensure that we meet the obligations we have voluntarily accepted under the refugee convention. The government has made a set of decisions about that. I understand the Leader of the Opposition does not agree with those decisions and I do not ask him to. But I do ask him to join with the government in putting executive government in the legal position it believed itself to be in before the recent High Court case. That is the legal position the Howard government also believed itself to be in. That is the question before this parliament—

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order, on relevance. I asked about this government's dismal return rate of just two per cent, and I seek leave to table the—

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Cook will resume his seat. Again, I would characterise the member for Cook's question as one that went beyond the question and had argument. If I were inclined I could have ruled that part out of order, but, as I have indicated, I allow those questions on the understanding that the questioner has to expect that it allows a wider-ranging response.

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What I say to the member for Cook is that the question that we will present to this parliament is the question about legislative power. I remain determined to amend the Migration Act. The question does present squarely to the opposition whether it will join the government in that. We have made briefings available. We are in the process now of arranging a briefing for the Leader of the Opposition. I trust that the opposition, when it has received that briefing about the amendments, will reach the view that it is important that there is legislation in the right form to enable government to enact its preferred answer on refugee and asylum seeker policy. For us, that will be Malaysia and PNG. For the opposition, that will be Nauru. But we require legislative amendment to support either solution, so the briefing will be made available. I ask the member for Cook and the Leader of the Opposition to absorb that information and make the decisions in their shadow cabinet and their party rooms beyond in the interests of this nation.

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to table a document which shows that less than two per cent—

Leave not granted.