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

As I was saying, the Greens political party voted with the government on almost every decision the Rudd and Gillard government made and had enormous influence on that government. They threatened to cross the floor and vote with us and bring the government down. When the government went ahead with the arrangement in Manus, of course they did not cross the floor. The hypocrisy of the Greens political party knows no bounds.

My concern with these reports is that they are always politically motivated. Senator Hanson-Young, with the support of the Australian Labor Party, has suggested and initiated so many inquiries into these things, but they are all politically motivated; they are all set up with committees that have a majority of Labor and Greens and Green Independent senators. They know the outcome before they go there, and it gives Senator Hanson-Young—with all due respect to you, Senator Hanson-Young; I do not want to belittle you—the opportunity to expose her expertise on this. She has looked at Sea Patrol episodes over many months, so she knows all about these things and how they work. The committee would rightly report before it had even had a hearing, and I suggest that that is what has happened now.

I simply cannot understand Senator Gallacher and other members from the Labor Party complaining about something that they set up. I am only going on your advice, Senator Gallacher, that it was on 19 July 2013. That was the very time that Mr Rudd and Senator Conroy were wining and dining these people from that country, making the deal. Why did they not say then, 'We're going to give you enough money, but we're only going to do this if you properly train your police, your judges and your parliamentarians. We'll only give you the money and do the deal with you if you do that.' Did they do that? No, of course they did not.

The Labor Party in government made this deal with a sovereign country. What does Senator Gallacher want us to do now? Perhaps, Senator Gallacher, we should mobilise the army and invade Nauru? We will teach them a lesson or two; we will invade the country and set up a democratic parliament, a proper judicial system and a proper police system! We will have Australian troops surrounding the place so that this little nation learns its lesson. Is that what you want? How else are you going to—