Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

This inquiry and all the other myriad inquiries into the border protection issue is a sad reflection on both the Labor Party and the Greens. We expect it from the Greens; we do not expect it from the Labor Party, which had six years to address these issues but failed completely. I regret to have to say this, but it is clear that the Labor Party and the Greens will take every action to destroy the efforts of this government in protecting our borders. The Labor Party showed themselves to be completely incapable of protecting the borders. There is now a government that can do it. The Labor Party do not like being shown up for the inefficient incompetents they were in government and so they will do everything to make sure this real, positive policy for Australia fails. They are on the side of the criminals who run the people-smuggling trade.

Look at all the inquiries and you will see it is the same. Labor cannot get over the fact that we are addressing the problem they created and could not deal with. Regrettably, the time for me to speak is short. I cannot believe the absolute hypocrisy of the Labor Party in talking about orders that were complied with. I am sure my colleague Senator Seselja, in his speech, pointed out that, in the 43rd Parliament, 53 orders of production were made against the Labor government, 26 were not complied with and seven were only partially complied with. In the 42nd parliament, similarly, 63 orders were made and 33 not complied with. And they have the hide to come in here and carry on as Senator Ludwig has just done. It really demonstrates the hypocrisy of the Australian Labor Party currently.

Senator Seselja also went through the more substantive reasons that it is the dissenting report which should be adopted by the Senate. The majority report is just another one of these political farces. The Labor Party and the Greens have the numbers. They could have written their majority report before the inquiry even started, because it was all predetermined and it is just a game—part of a Labor-Greens alliance that will do anything to destroy a policy that is actually working and correcting the mess the Labor Party made of our borders. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.