House debates Questions without Notice
Minister for Home Affairs
Shayne Neumann Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Border Protection
2:28 pm
My question is for the Minister for Home Affairs. In question time on 27 March, when asked whether he could categorically rule out any personal connection between himself and the intended employers of the au pairs, the minister answered, 'Yes, and I don't know these people'. How can the minister expect the parliament to believe he didn't know the intended employer of the Italian au pair when an email he sent to the minister, titled 'Call required', begins, 'Peter, long time between calls'?
Mr Craig Kelly interjecting —
Mr Chester interjecting —
Tony Smith Speaker
The member for Hughes. The Minister for Veterans' Affairs.
Peter Dutton Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Home Affairs
2:29 pm
You have had since March. You had an opportunity yesterday. You got to question No. 8. You asked me a lame question about whether I could table an email. You have been out there with your wet lettuce, talking to journalists. You've been issuing angry press releases. And, after all of that time, that is the best you could come up with. This is the most incompetent shadow immigration minister in Australia's history. That comes as a surprise to many of my colleagues—not that he's so lame but that he's the shadow immigration minister.
Peter Dutton Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Home Affairs
He has refused time and time again to ask questions about border protection or—
Peter Dutton Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Home Affairs
about how we got the 8,000 children out of detention that he and his colleagues put into detention.
Tony Smith Speaker
The member for Gellibrand will leave under 94(a).
The member for Gellibrand then left the chamber.
Peter Dutton Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Home Affairs
He doesn't ask about the detention centres, 17 of which we closed. Labor opened 17. I want the journalists in the gallery up there to have their pens poised because this is going to be a significant drop for them. The Labor Party and the Greens don't like me because of border protection. I want that to be the scoop of the day. What's all this faux outrage about issuing visas to tourists, kicking out bikies—'Why is he kicking out bikies? Why is he cancelling visas of paedophiles?'—and the rest of it? They can carry on all they like. I'll tell you this much: all I will do is double down because I'm not going to tolerate the personal attacks on me or—
Ms Swanson interjecting—
Tony Smith Speaker
The minister will resume his seat. The member for Paterson can leave under 94(a). The member for Blair on a point of order.
The member for Paterson then left the chamber.
Shayne Neumann Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Border Protection
Relevance—I asked a very simple question about his knowledge of the employer. He's not answering the question at all.
Mr Hunt interjecting—
Dr Aly interjecting—
Tony Smith Speaker
The member for Blair will resume his seat. The Minister for Health will cease interjecting. The member for Cowan will cease interjecting. On the point of order, the member for Blair makes a reasonable—
Ms Burney interjecting—
The member for Barton will leave under 94(a). I've made it very clear: I'm not going to negotiate points of order with interjections constantly through question time.
The member for Barton then left the chamber.
Ms Plibersek interjecting—
Does the Deputy Leader of the Opposition hear what I say, because she's interjecting constantly? I'm trying to rule on the point of order on behalf of the member for Blair. Over the interjections of those on my left, I'm endeavouring to say the member for Blair makes a valid point of order. The minister is entitled to a preamble, but we are now more than halfway through the allotted time. He now needs to bring himself to the substance of the question asked.
Peter Dutton Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Home Affairs
I'm happy to, Mr Speaker. I just went to the reasons why this faux debate is being conducted, and I'll make some more comments on that—I'm happy if they ask every question between now and the end of the week. I tabled that email yesterday because it indicated that, as I've said all along, there is not one statement that I've made that the Labor Party can point to that is factually incorrect. That's the reality. I worked with that individual in 1998-99. I haven't spoken to him in 20 years. There were 5,500 police in the Queensland Police Force when I left in July of '99. He doesn't have my personal mobile number. He doesn't have my personal email address. He sent an email to my generic, publicly available email account. My staffer came to me and said, 'I have this email.' My response was: 'Who? Who is that?' That was my response to it. There is a lot more I'm happy to say about it if you want to ask the next question, because regrettably I'm out of time now. But hopefully your next one will be better than the last.
Chris Bowen McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer
The minister appeared to be quoting from documents in two folders. Could I ask him to table both folders?
Tony Smith Speaker
Does the minister have confidential material with him?