Alan Tudge (Aston, Liberal Party, Minister for Population, Cities and Urban Infrastructure) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I can only reiterate that it is not a privatisation, because the government will remain responsible for all of the key national security decisions, the risk assessment, the visa policy, the business rules and all of the key functions of government. In that regard, this model, for which we have been going through an expression of interest process, is precisely the same as the electronic travel authority in relation to which Labor, when they were in government for those six long years, ran a process and they were quite happy with that process underway. Thirty per cent of all visas today go through the electronic visa authority, so, clearly, the Labor Party did not have a great problem with that model when they were in government but, today, they're seeking to politicise this decision. They didn't make the decision to upgrade the visa processing system because their budget, frankly, wasn't in a position for them to do so. We made this decision; we're going through a process. The Prime Minister and his office are fully recused from the decision-making process, and we will go through it in a methodical, professional way, doing the things that governments should be doing.

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