Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is not the majority at all. We know that the vast majority of them end up having their claims for asylum approved. The vast majority of them are genuine asylum seekers. That is something that you do not like, because you want to paint all these people as opportunists and queue jumpers. That is what you have done and what you want to do, and it makes me sick. It is political opportunism that plays on people’s most basic fears. You ought to know better. You ought to be leaders in the community.

The Australian government needs to assess every claim for asylum that is made. We need to check where these people have come from and whether their claims are genuine. We need to establish that they are who they say they are. That is very difficult to do sometimes when people have fled countries, especially when the regimes that they have fled from are uncooperative. It is an incredibly difficult process. There is always a balance between the government’s responsibility to process people properly and to ensure that their claims are accurate and that they are who they say they are and the government’s responsibility to put people through the system as quickly as we can possibly can. That is a challenge not only for this government but for every government. I strongly urge the opposition to get some humanity back. (Time expired)