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

Thank you, Mr Speaker. We have that man of constant principle, the member for Berowra, who has always maintained a consistency of line when it comes to asylum seekers over years past. The font of all advice on this, apart from Senator Ronaldson, is as follows:

When asked this question, colleagues, by no means ever answer it.

Never answer the question. What would you have done with a vessel in distress or, secondly, where would you have taken it—Indonesia, Christmas Island or the Australian mainland? They are the two questions which they do not want to answer.

But I do love the member for Sturt almost as much as the member for Murray. He intervened in a particular way in an interview on 29 October, when he was asked:

Would the opposition suggest that the government use force to remove these people or bring them to Australia, because what else could they do?

Christopher Pyne, the member for Sturt, said:

Well, look, Kieran, the opposition is not going to let the government off the hook by making ourselves and our position on these issues an excuse for Labor to try and distract the media and the public.

There we go. I am happy to table what the member for Sturt says. It should always be immortalised in the Hansard. You never know when you will need it in the future. What we have here is an absolute pattern of opportunistic behaviour. On the key questions of what should happen with this vessel, how it should be handled, whether it should be rescued and, on top of that, where it should be taken, their answer, consistent with the advice of the good old member for Berowra, is: whatever you do, become a small target. Take no position.

This government’s policy is clear-cut when it comes to asylum seekers. I say to those opposite: their policy in response is as follows. Simply, in four words, their policy is: all fear, no solutions. Our approach is clear; theirs is driven by opportunism.

The Indonesian and Australian governments recognise this is a complex challenge for the future. Oh, would that those opposite recognise that there are practical issues in this concern, which go to people’s lives and the future integrity of the Australian migration system.

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