Steve Hutchins (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

My question is to Senator Vanstone, the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs. Does the minister recall the Prime Minister’s decision to change the government’s immigration policy last year in response to serious concerns raised by backbenchers such as the member for Kooyong? Does the minister further recall the Prime Minister’s assurance on the ABC’s 7.30 Report on 20 June 2005 about those changes:

... we have introduced some changes which ensure that families with children will be looked after in community detention, in other words they won’t be in a detention centre ...

Does the minister stand by the Prime Minister’s commitment and will she now provide an absolute guarantee that families and children will be placed in the community rather than in a detention centre on Nauru? What has changed that has led the government to again seek to lock up children in detention centres?