Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I am not sure there is much of a question in that. I am not sure what the senator’s concerns are, given he was part of a government that operated Baxter. Is he saying we ought to reopen it or that he is opposed to it reopening? I am not quite clear. But, Senator, as I understand it, you are looking for a Pacific island somewhere. You are in search of an island on which to lock kids up behind barbed wire again and you have not found one yet, but what we know is that all the policy thinking you have done since the election is to say, ‘We’ll put Philip Ruddock in charge again.’ Philip Ruddock, by the way, has not ruled out coming back as immigration minister if the Liberals are successful at the next election. But the extent of Liberal Party thinking on this whole issue is to say, ‘We’ll go back to the future.’ That history included locking children up for years on end in detention centres on Manus and Nauru. If the question is whether we are going to do that, no.