Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration) Share this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Senator Carr. I refer to the evidence given by Andrew Metcalfe, Secretary of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship, in Senate estimates last week, where he said in relation to the government’s proposed East Timor regional processing centre:

… one of the issues you raised earlier, about pull factors or a magnet factor, is the sort of thing that you would actually need to work through quite carefully such that the place would not become a magnet in itself.

Will the minister admit that the government’s current policies will make it inevitable that an East Timor regional processing centre will become a magnet for asylum seekers?