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

Your back bench joined with us to force you to take them out—good members like Ms Moylan and others joined with many in the community and many in this building to force the Howard government to change its policy position. Do not come into this chamber and continue to pretend that you have the remotest interest in the genuine position of people in these circumstances—people who have been fleeing from persecution, fleeing from all sorts of horrors, surviving trips that they should not have been taking. They are taking these trips because you do not have the courage to stop playing politics. That is what this debate is about. Those opposite will not stop playing politics with this, and they stand shamed by their irresponsible behaviour and their willingness to keep those people-smuggling rings alive.