House debates

Wednesday, 26 May 2010

Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2010-2011; Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2010-2011; Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2010-2011

Second Reading

10:08 am

Photo of Scott MorrisonScott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Hansard source

I am sure the member for Dobell is very upset at the coalition’s policies of strong border protection and I am sure he will remind all of his electors in Dobell that he stands for the policies that this government has introduced which have allowed almost 5,000 people to arrive this year. I am sure the member for Dobell is going to stand up proudly in his electorate and talk about the Rudd government’s strong border protection policies which have allowed this level of failure—and if he fails to do so I will make sure I remind them when I visit there frequently over the next few weeks. I was on the Central Coast just the other day, as I am sure he knows. This government needs to own up to the fact that its policies have failed in this area, that its policies are misrepresented in terms of the costs in this budget.

The coalition is ready to put in place direct and real action in this area which is strong, which is tough and which is consistent. People know where we stand but, most importantly, they know we will be fair. We have always stood for fair process—one rule for all who fall foul of our laws and fall foul of the way that we would prefer them to arrive. We do not have one rule for those who might be Iraqis, Iranians, Indonesians or Pakistanis and then another rule for Afghans and Sri Lankans. That is just a disgrace of a policy that has proved to be as ineffective as it is discriminatory. If those opposite were honest they would say so, and I notice only the member for Melbourne Ports has been prepared to stand up for that in his own party room. At least he has the decency of consistency on these matters. We will not discriminate, as this government has shamefully done, but most importantly we will be fair and we will have the resolve. We will get these borders under control. We will get these costs under control.

This government budgets that it will get back into surplus but at the same time fails to include in its budget the costs of its own policy failures that will actually deny it that outcome. So it is a budget that fails to tell the truth. It fails to tell the truth about the cost of the government’s own policies. It is built on a great big tax to fund the government’s addiction to spending and it will result, no doubt, in continued economic profligacy, to the great disadvantage of all Australians.

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