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

Thank you, Mr President. As I was going to say, meanwhile the minister will begin preliminary interviews for processing people at the Nauru centre shortly. These issues all relate to the operation of the Nauru centre. Can I say to Senator Brandis that in relation to the explicit matter he has asked about I would need to get additional information because I do not have any specific brief on the matter. I am very happy to do that and in the meantime, as you can hear, our work is progressing very well on Nauru. We will, of course, continue to make transfers to Nauru and to Manus Island starting today. In this way we persist with our commitment to honouring the independent advice of the expert panel and implementing the 22 recommendations. What is unfortunate is that the opposition fail to grasp the seriousness of this issue and continue to play politics with it, to their discredit. This is a challenging issue. We are committed to smashing the people smugglers' model and it is a great shame that the opposition do not share our concern and our commitment to this serious task.