Don Randall (Canning, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

You just go and write another dirty book and see how you go. You will have an opportunity shortly, Kevin Rudd's mate.

One of the things these amendments will do is enshrine the character test into legislation. The Labor Party talked about character tests under their new regime. I think they even talked about new paradigms and such, but none of them worked. You may recall the boats that have arrived off Darwin, and in particular the one they set on fire themselves. The court found that five people were guilty of having started the fire. Can you believe that the previous government gave those people visas to stay in Australia. They were given visas to stay in Australia even though they killed some of the people on their own boats.

This legislation is going to fix up those terrible rorts and the lack of accountability that happened under the previous government. We are the ones who are going to bring integrity back to this country's migration system. I know those on the other side are uncomfortable about this. The member for Fremantle is someone I know well, being a Western Australian. I know that she wanted to move in her party room that they move away from detention. Remember that it was Gerry Hand, all those years ago, who confirmed that there would be mandatory detention in this country. Those on the other side, particularly the Left of the Labor Party, are still uncomfortable that we have mandatory detention. It is a bipartisan policy, but they still want to move in their own caucus meetings that they walk away from these things. That is the real issue here. If they had the opportunity again to be on the Treasury benches or on this side of the House they would water down the arrangements and legislation so that the green light could be turned on again.

We want to bring fairness back into the system. I have constituents who have family overseas and are trying to bring their children here. They talked about domestic violence. A particular woman I know in Malaysia has been subjected to domestic violence and has been ostracised by her ex-husband in Malaysia, who has now returned to the Middle East. She cannot get a visa. She is stranded in Malaysia. They are the sort of people we want to bring to Australia, rather than the ones who pay a people smuggler $10,000 and then use our court system to park themselves in Australia on the charity of organisations in Australia like the Salvation Army and others.

This is decent legislation that is designed to tidy up the mess the Labor Party brought to this country, and as a result denigrated our reputation as a migration destination without any discrimination. I support the bill.

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