Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Hansard source

I hear what the minister has said in answer to the question, and obviously we welcome it if there is some certainty that this bill will be introduced in this sitting fortnight. I would remind the minister that two weeks ago the Prime Minister said that the bill would be introduced within the next couple of weeks, which at that point meant that it should have been introduced on Monday. Instead, what we are seeing is the bill being dragged out and out. One imagines that the reason for that is that what has characterised the debate in relation to this is not so much trying to find consensus between the government and the opposition but trying to find some form of consensus amongst the government itself, which it appears has been very difficult to do. One imagines, given the reports we have heard that it did not even make it to cabinet on Monday night, that we are still battling to see whether or not that consensus can be found within the government.

The minister referred to 'normal practice'. He assured this place that there would be no departure from normal practice in relation to national security matters. I would have thought that, in respect of normal practice when it comes to national security matters, what ought to characterise that is bipartisanship—constructively working together in the national interest for our national security, which, despite the bleating of the government, is something which is held just as dearly, taken to heart, on this side of politics as it is on the conservative side of politics. We will stand up our record over the decades since Federation on that question against those on the conservative side any day of the week.

See this speech in context