Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the senator for his question. I guess when you are digging a hole, they usually tell you to stop digging, but those opposite have been exposed cruelly by the utter incompetence of their shadow foreign minister. Let's put on the record the position of the Indonesian government. In an interview just recently with the Vice President, the host asks: 'But that stops the territorial integrity and Indonesia will not accept Australian vessels trying to return asylum seekers to Indonesian ports.' To which the Vice President replied: 'Well, that is the position at the moment.' The host goes on to ask: 'What do you think will happen?'

Senator Abetz interjecting—

Senator Abetz, you are again trying to help out Ms Bishop, who makes such a fool of herself. The host said: 'What do you think would happen to relations between Jakarta and Canberra if an Australian government did try to have boatloads of asylum seekers returned to Indonesian territory?' 'I would hope we would talk about that before it happens,' he said.

Indonesia's ambassador—someone else who has also exposed what a complete and utter charlatan and incompetent the shadow foreign minister is—said:

Indonesia is a transit country and we are also the victim of this situation. I think it's not possible for the Coalition to say that it has to go to Indonesia.

That is because Indonesia is not the origin country of these people. He went on the say: 'No such collaboration will happen between Indonesia and Australia to bring back the people to Indonesia.' (Time expired)