Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

My, how times have changed. What is so different to the days of Malcolm Fraser and Paul Keating? Even during the Howard years, the then opposition leader Kim Beazley continued that policy of bipartisanship: the policy of cooperation on migration that had previously existed between governments and oppositions for many, many years. Many in the Labor Party did not support Kim Beazley's action in supporting the Howard plan on asylum seekers, but it was supporting a bipartisan approach.

The successful Fraser government's Indochina refugee program would not have been possible without the cooperation of refugee transit countries such as Malaysia. The same is true today. Not the simplistic, go it alone approach of the coalition as they repeat their mantra over and over again: Nauru, temporary protection visas, turn the boats back. One-liners derived from focus groups and dog whistling do not add up to a refugee policy.

Meanwhile, the coalition hang onto their delusion that the Pacific solution stopped the boats under Howard. On the other hand, the Expert Panel on Asylum Seekers was asked to help present a solution after the intransigence of the coalition.