Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the acting minister for immigration. It goes to his last answer, where he ignored the $165,000 donation from a private company which seeks to 'build and operate the visa system'. I ask the minister: if it looks like a privatisation and it smells like a privatisation, why won't the minister concede that this is privatisation of our visa system by a major donor and mate of the Prime Minister?

Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, the acting immigration minister answered at great length the part of the question which was in order, which was with respect to whether or not the visa system is or is planned to be privatised. Clearly, it's not. That part of the question that went to a donation is a party political matter not within the auspices of the minister's portfolio.

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I say to the Leader of the House that, in reference to political donations, the minister's not responsible for those. Indeed the Prime Minister's not responsible for those; they're matters that parties are responsible for. So I agree with the Leader of the House. The part that is in order is the question relating to the visa system and the question of privatisation and that's in order for two reasons: in substance and because the Leader of the Opposition is referring to the minister's last answer. The minister can answer the question and confine himself to that part of the question.

Alan Tudge (Aston, Liberal Party, Minister for Population, Cities and Urban Infrastructure) Share this | Link to 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.