Alan Tudge (Aston, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would also like to speak strongly against the Migration Amendment (Temporary Sponsored Visas) Bill 2013 that is in front of us this evening. This is a disgraceful bill that true Labor members on the other side of this chamber—the true ones, the good ones, and even the Simon Creans who are over there listened to this debate—should be ashamed about. I do not believe that if Simon Crean were leader of the Labor Party, or if he was the immigration minister at this time, he would put through a bill such as this one, which is all about protecting union mates and flies in the face of everything that we have done in this country for the last few decades on a bipartisan basis to try to attract skilled migrants. I do not believe a Simon Crean would do this and I think that, deep down, he is embarrassed about this bill in front of us.

I would commend the fine words of the member for Kooyong in the speech immediately before me. He outlined the case incredibly well as to why this bill is the wrong bill to be introducing into this parliament. He outlined the two reasons it is being introduced. Firstly, it is to be a distraction from the disgraceful, chaotic and wasteful border protection regime that they have in place, which is seeing thousands of boats coming to this place on a regular basis now. They want a distraction from this and this bill is designed to provide that.

The second reason they introduced this bill is because the unions have demanded it. They have demanded it of this Prime Minister and of this new immigration minister, and therefore the Prime Minister and the immigration minister are rushing it into this parliament. When the unions demand something of this government, it cannot be done quickly enough for them. It is funny, because with the border protection regime we had, the Houston inquiry made a series of recommendations—one of which was to excise the mainland—and that recommendation was made many, many months ago.

What did the minister do in relation to that recommendation? He just sat on it. He did not rush to go ahead with it to deal with the matter at hand as recommended by their own expert panel. He sat on it for absolutely months. But what do they do when the unions demand that we crack down on the 457 visas? Straightaway we had better get on with the job and fix it up because the unions have demanded that we crack down on 457 visas. If the unions demand that this Labor government does something, they will immediately rush into this parliament and legislate to fix up those things which the unions say need fixing. Imagine if the unions said that we really need to stop the boats. Perhaps they would introduce some serious measures to stop the boats. Imagine if the unions said that we need to get control of the borders. Imagine if the unions said, yes, we actually need to bring the surplus into the budget—

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