Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

You always know when the member for Murray is in trouble: she starts interjecting at a pace of knots. The committee recommended that, as a priority, the Australian government introduce amendments to the Migration Act 1958 to enshrine in legislation the reforms to immigration detention policy announced by the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Senator Chris Evans. Sharman Stone, the member for Murray, was a member of that same parliamentary committee and said, ‘Labor is very much echoing what we did.’ Then, when asked if she welcomed the report’s recommendations to finetune the system, she said, ‘I do.’ On 16 April this year the member for Murray ruled out the reopening of offshore processing centres on Nauru and Manus Island. That is the Pacific solution. I quote the member for Murray again, as she studies her documents carefully knowing that these actually reflect what she has put on the public record:

We no longer have that requirement because we’ve got an alternative place which is in our excised migration zone, Christmas Island.

Myth No. 1, myth No. 2 and myth No. 3. What they have engaged in instead is simply the politics of fear. What they have sought to do is to deliberately cultivate a culture of fear in Australia about this because they, consistent with those who have gone before them, believe that this represents an excellent political strategy for the opposition rather than a real solution to the problem.

This is the party of the Pacific solution, this is the party of kids behind razor wire, this is the party of Vivian Alvarez and this is the party of Cornelia Rau—as those opposite who have previously held that office as migration ministers bury their heads again in their papers pretending that none of this ever happened and all can be carefully and precisely airbrushed from history. In fact, it cannot be so. The Liberal Party fear and smear campaign on this matter has no basis in fact, no basis in policy and no basis in morality. But the time has come for the Leader of the Opposition to stand up and show some leadership on this question, to lead for the first time rather than always to follow.

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