Jerome Laxale (Bennelong, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I've been a member in this place for around 18 months now. I'm a first-term MP, and I came into this place with my eyes wide open. But one of the craziest things I've witnessed here in my 18 months on a near daily occurrence is the collective amnesia of the Liberal and National parties of Australia. Near daily, they raise a matter of public importance with zero self-reflection about their own record. They raise topics about inflation and interest rates and never acknowledge their record in 10 years of government or that the highest quarter of CPI in a generation was under their watch. They raise topics about energy prices but conveniently forget to mention that they voted against energy price relief in December last year.

Now, today, the absolute gall of those opposite to say this is a government that isn't keeping Australians safe, when their record on immigration and cybersecurity is as it was, is just astounding. Those opposite will never acknowledge that Australians elected the Albanese government to fix up the mess left by them. Be it on inflation, or cost of living, or keeping Australians safe, those opposite failed. On cybersecurity, they failed to keep Australians safe. On immigration, they failed to keep Australians safe. And on key national security laws, they failed to keep Australians safe.

I remind those opposite that laws drafted and implemented by a former coalition government were the laws that were just ruled unconstitutional by the High Court. Unconstitutional laws do not keep Australians safe. While the Leader of the Opposition stands up and plays that 'tough guy on borders' role that we know he loves to play, he is the man that was directly responsible for the mismanagement of dozens and dozens of cases and multiple pieces of legislation.

We just need to look at the Nixon review to see in black and white how the Leader of the Opposition and the former government failed to keep Australians safe. The revelations uncovered by the Nixon review into migration are as confronting as they are infuriating. Our migration system should never operate like it did under the Liberals and Nationals ever again. Our migration system should operate for the benefit of all Australians. Instead, under those opposite, it operated for the benefit of criminals. Rapid review into the exploitation of Australia's visa system paints a stark picture of a broken immigration system, a system that was left to rot by the Leader of the Opposition in his role as the former Minister for Home Affairs. The review revealed a deeply flawed system that allowed criminal gangs from around the world to exploit vulnerabilities in the system for their benefit—tragically, at the expense of genuine migrants who would have otherwise reunited with their families or filled much-needed skills shortages.

Those opposite are responsible for a broken immigration system, where abuse of our visa system ran rampant. Those opposite presided over a migration system that was used to facilitate some of the worst crimes in our society, and they come in here today and say that this government isn't keeping Australians safe. Those opposite slashed immigration compliance officers by 50 per cent. Contrast their terrible record to what this government is doing to fix their mess. Unlike those opposite, we listen to experts and we listen to our national security agencies. Unlike those opposite, we do the work to keep Australians safe and we do it properly. Unlike those opposite, we will build a better migration system that serves our national interests but doesn't serve the interests of criminals.

We're investing $50 million into migration compliance. We're establishing an immigration compliance division. We've already cancelled 45 visas linked to criminal syndicates. Under the Liberals, criminals flourished; under Labor, we're closing the syndicates. That's even without going into the details on cybersecurity and the reforms the minister is doing. Australians don't get it wrong; they elected us to clean up their mess.

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