David Smith (Bean, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Home Affairs. How does the Richardson review build on previous reviews regarding the administration of the Home Affairs portfolio and Australia's immigration system?

Government Members:

Government members interjecting—

Milton Dick (Speaker) | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Members on my right will cease interjecting. The member for Bean was heard in silence.

Leader of the Opposition, I'm trying to call the minister.

Clare O'Neil (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Home Affairs) | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to thank the brilliant member for Bean for his very good question. The Richardson review, which was released this week, is a damning indictment of the failures of the Leader of the Opposition. For most of us in this place, just one report of this kind would be absolutely devastating.

Milton Dick (Speaker) | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Page is warned.

Clare O'Neil (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Home Affairs) | Link to this | Hansard source

This is a report that shows us that the Leader of the Opposition oversaw hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars being funnelled into companies which were involved in drug smuggling, arms trafficking, money laundering and human trafficking. To have so fundamentally failed in your duty to the Australian people! How do you come back from that?

But, of course, for the Leader of the Opposition it's not just the Richardson review. Three reports from three eminent Australians—Martin Parkinson, Christine Nixon and Dennis Richardson—have now found that the Leader of the Opposition's public record is littered with systems that he has wrecked and destroyed. Martin Parkinson's review, which I have here, describes the migration system as being fundamentally broken, and he has said that this occurred because of a decade of deliberate neglect by those opposite. The Nixon review found that, for all the bluff and bluster—

Milton Dick (Speaker) | Link to this | Hansard source

The minister will not use props during her answer.

Clare O'Neil (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Home Affairs) | Link to this | Hansard source

The Nixon review found that, for all the bluff and bluster that went into being tough on borders, the Leader of the Opposition catastrophically failed to manage our migration system, leading to career criminals and people who were known human traffickers coming into the country under the Leader of the Opposition's watch and hurting Australian people. Where is the accountability for this? Then, of course, the Richardson review, as we know, demonstrates that, on the watch of the Leader of the Opposition, hundreds of millions of dollars was taken from the constituents of every single one of us in this chamber and given to companies that went on to commit horrible crimes. What we have before us is hundreds of pages that tell that us that all the Leader of the Opposition knows how to do is wreck, divide and destroy.

But, of course, it's not just his time in Home Affairs. It's not just my portfolio and the messes that I'm cleaning up. Remember that, when the Leader of the Opposition was health minister, he was voted by doctors as being the worst health minister in living memory. That was before he tried to cut $50 billion out of our hospital network. In Defence, for all the explosive rhetoric, what we saw was the Leader of the Opposition presiding over delayed defence projects to the tune of 97 years late.

What do we hear from the Leader of the Opposition in countering all of these very well-substantiated claims about him?

Milton Dick (Speaker) | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Groom will remain silent for the remainder of this answer.

Clare O'Neil (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Home Affairs) | Link to this | Hansard source

We hear crickets. That's because this is a tough guy who doesn't want to answer the tough questions. There is one question that matters more than all: when he cannot run a government department, why does he think he should run our country?