Gary Humphries (ACT, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence Materiel) Share this | Hansard source

If the government's legislation is passed, they will process all of the refugees who come into Australian waters in Malaysia, in a country which canes people for being refugees and nothing else. In the five years between 2005 and 2010, it has caned almost 30,000 unlawful entrants to Malaysia. Malaysia has laws built into its system of justice which allow the corporal punishment of people, including children, for committing any of a range of minor offences. Children may be whipped, not more than 10 strokes a light cane, I am pleased to say, but they may under the law of Malaysia be whipped for committing certain offences if they are refugees. I am not going to use my vote on the floor of the Senate today to perpetrate that kind of injustice. I want better solutions for those to whom Australia has a duty of care. It is a pity that the Labor Party is not prepared to make the same kind of—