Mr CHAMPION (Wakefield) (17:14): Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I apologise for my indulgences taken while you were in the chair. There can be no greater threat to the nation's security than a political party that puts its short-term political interest ahead of the national interest. That is what we have seen from this opposition, who only a year ago came into this House and voted against giving the government the power to do the Malaysian transfer agreement. They sat in this House with the Greens party, over on that side of the chamber, and voted against giving the government the ability to implement the Malaysian transfer agreement that may have prevented people coming through regular maritime arrivals. This has been a long debate. It has been going on since the seventies. In the seventies you had Mick Young and Ian Macphee—those two fine gentleman of this House—sit down, in the wake of the terrible war in Vietnam and in the wake of 1,700 boat people arriving on our shores, and come to an agreement to bring refugees to our country in a safe way. That was part of bipartisan consensus, and it was a great tribute to Mick Young. The Labor Party at the time could have played the same grubby, short-term politics that the opposition today play. We could have done that, but Mick Young didn't—and Ian Macphee didn't. In the eighties and the nineties the Hawke and Keating governments implemented agreements with countries from which asylum seekers had fled from, like China and the rest, to prevent such arrivals and they implemented mandatory detention. It was the Labor Party which implemented that. It was the Labor Party which first said that we should manage the borders in that way. Now we come to the noughties, in particular 1999 and 2001. We often hear the opposition crowing, in a sanctimonious way, about how John Howard solved this issue but they neglect to tell you that it is an issue that they presided over. In 1999, when John Howard was Prime Minister, 3,700 people arrived by boat. In the year 2000, when John Howard was Prime Minister, 2,939 people arrived by boat. In 2001, 5,516 people arrived by boat. An issue was resolved on his watch that he presided over. Mrs Mirabella: He resolved it. Bring yourself to that. He stopped the boats. Mr CHAMPION: But here's the thing—I hear the interjections and I am reasonably gracious towards the former Prime Minister—and here is the difference. He had a parliamentary majority, he had an opposition that actually supported him—just like Mick Young and Ian Macphee. But what do we have today? An opposition that puts its own dark partisan interest ahead. They come in here with all this talk about national security and they talk about matters they frankly know nothing about. They are at a dangerous level of ignorance, and ignorance is what we heard from the member for Dawson. We hear this dark partisanship repeated over and over again at this point. We had the member for Stirling come in here and give us a lecture about national security. Last year, in the debate over the Malaysian transfer agreement, he blubbered; he had tears up there at the dispatch box. That is what we had from Joe Hockey, the shadow Treasurer. Now we get this lecture. You cannot have it both ways. You cannot come in here last year and frustrate the government's ability to act by voting with the Greens party in a sickening marriage of convenience—after all the lectures about how the Greens party are evil they came in here and voted with them—and then, a mere eight months later, roll in here with this sort of dark partisanship. It is reminiscent of the reds under the bed. Oh, they're coming to get you! I will be quite plain with the House. I do not want people arriving by boat to this country. I will be quite plain that zero would be the primary number that I would like, so zero people arriving. I am not against refugees coming to this country and settling appropriately if they are good citizens and if they are good Australians. That is what we have been doing since the fifties. But what I am against is people taking a dangerous journey, a journey that endangers their lives and the lives of ADF personnel and Customs officials. I am against that because frankly we get these issues. That is why I pushed in my party for a long time for mechanisms like the Malaysian transfer agreement. That is why it was so galling and stunning to come into this House and see the Liberal Party, who beat their chests relentlessly about this, go over there and vote with the Greens and frustrate the government's ability to act. The truth is we will never know what effect the Malaysian transfer agreement might have had. It might have prevented the sorts of arrivals that we had. It might have prevented the 6,000 Sri Lankans who decided to try and come here by boat, of which 1,100 or so have been removed back to Sri Lanka by the government, so sent back home. We do not know what effect the Malaysian transfer agreement might have had. It might have had the effect of dissuading people from making irregular maritime arrivals. I think it is a great misfortune for this country that not only did the opposition vote against it but they have trashed this option by trashing the Malaysian government in the process in their vindictive dark partisanship— Mr Danby: Short-termism. Mr CHAMPION: Yes, short-termism. So they trashed the Malaysian transfer agreement and the option to do transfer agreements with other countries. They trashed that option and trashed a key part of the Bali process. Then what did they do with the expert panel? I can tell you what they did with the expert panel. They said from the outset of the expert panel, 'Well, the expert panel can do what it likes but we'll ignore it. We've got our own solution.' That brings me to their own solution. The minister alluded to this, that they have got one big promise—'We're going to stop the boats. We're going to turn back the boats.'—but I can tell you that this is a very, very dangerous high-risk policy. We had an un-named Navy officer quoted in the Australian on 23 January 2012 saying: “They'll see us and they'll burn their boats,” … "They'll do that to stop us repairing them." Then we had Vice-Admiral Ray Griggs, the head of the Navy, in Senate estimates—a serious forum—saying: … there were incidents during these activities, as there have been incidents subsequently, which have been risky. There have been fires lit, there have been attempts to storm the engine compartment of these boats, there have been people jumping in the water and that sort of thing … yes, there are obviously risks involved in this process. That is a terrible, terrible risk to take. You hear the Navy telling us that this is a dangerous option to pursue and yet Tony Abbott, what is his response? On Sky News on 21 April this year he said: It's not easy and we've had various naval officers tell us that it is tough, and that people don't always like it. I'm not saying that it's not difficult, under certain circumstances, it might even be dangerous … So even the Leader of the Opposition acknowledges that this option might be dangerous. And not just dangerous for asylum seekers, but it is also going to be dangerous for ADF personnel. That is who it is going to be dangerous for. And anybody who has been up and seen the important work that those people do would not put them in danger. And yet that is what the Leader of the Opposition, this armchair general sitting here in Canberra, is going to do. He is going to give them orders to turn back boats to a country that has made it clear—Indonesia has made it clear that it is not amenable to this policy. So they have trashed every option. They have trashed Malaysia and they are in the process of trashing our relationship with Indonesia. It is a disgrace. We have an opposition that are so brazen. They think they have the election won and they are so brazen that they would come into this House and talk about national security, and in their ignorance display their idiocy—the member for Dawson, who is a fool, displays his ignorance—but the truth is that they use this issue as an incense burner for their vanity and for their lust for office. They will regret it in the long run because in their short-termism they have betrayed the national interest—not betrayed the government, but betrayed the Australian people.