Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I was indicating that this lack of consistency on process has been mirrored by a lack of consistency on substance. I refer to the statement of the shadow minister on 27 July 2010, talking about his plan in relation to Nauru, where he said:

No it's not. It's not a precondition that Nauru is a signatory to the refugee convention.

Of course, because of the politics of all of this, the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow minister have now adopted a completely different position.

Why are they doing that? Why have they moved from their original position to this completely different position? The reason they have moved is because they want to act in what they perceive to be their political interest, not the national interest. They want to deny this country the ability to process asylum seekers offshore. I remind the shadow minister that the government's amendment to the migration bill would enable this government and governments in the future to make appropriate choices in relation to the processing of asylum seekers, including that, should it ever occur that the shadow minister served on the government benches—

Ms Julie Bishop interjecting—

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