Kate Lundy (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister Assisting for Industry and Innovation) Share this | Hansard source

We have now completed two charters of voluntary returns to Sri Lanka—the first group of 18 and the second of 28. This shows the disincentive effect is working. It also shows that, as the facilities on Nauru are being constructed, this policy is coming into effect. Again, to stand up in this chamber and somehow say that this approach is not going to work is just a total fabrication on behalf of the opposition. They can see the effect that it is having but they choose now that it is starting to work to shift their story again, to find a new way to present some opposition and to politicise this issue. Labor have made a commitment to solving this problem in the long term—to putting in place a durable solution that is part of regional framework. What we do not get from the opposition is any signal, any interest at all, that they want to solve this problem once and for all. They are happy to play the low politics— (Time expired)