Mr BURKE (Watson—Minister for the Arts, Minister for Home Affairs, Minister for Cyber Security, Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs and Leader of the House) (12:20): If there was ever a motion that said that the Leader of the Opposition is not fit for office, it's what he's put in writing right now. Let me just go to a couple of clauses. As Leader of the Opposition, he gets security briefings. In his previous portfolio as Minister for Defence, he received security briefings. In his portfolio before that, in home affairs, he received security briefings. So how on earth does someone with that sort of background move the following things in this parliament? In this resolution, he wants a public declaration letting visa applicants know if they're the subject of a security assessment. Just here in the privacy of the House of Representatives, he wants us to publicly let it be known if someone is being subjected to a security assessment right now. Instead of letting the agencies do it in their normal way, let's just, just between us, let it be known on the floor of the House of Representatives, where no-one else will hear. Name one time when anyone wanting to be Prime Minister has said something as idiotic as that. If you want to say you care about national security, the first thing you don't do, if you're conducting a security assessment on someone, is let them know. You don't ring them up and say: 'Hey, this is what we think we've got on you. This is what we think we're checking on you. Would you mind if we had a public conversation about it?' The Leader of the Opposition knows this is madness, or at least he used to know that. But right now, when he sees the chance to get angry, when he sees the chance to have a fight, all the national security principles go completely out the window. The national security of Australia doesn't matter when it gets in the way of his political interest. Why else would he put something like that in a resolution? But it doesn't stop there. The next paragraph after that is even more bizarre. He wants a public answer to this: what are the criteria for ASIO to carry out a security assessment? So he wants everything that he may have been told in private briefings over a large proportion of his career to now become a public discussion on the floor of the House of Representatives. You do know that there are public galleries?—no aspersions on any of the people up there; I'm glad you're here. You do know that this is broadcast? I don't know who watches the broadcast. I don't know why people watch the broadcast from time to time, and I certainly don't know why anyone watches the broadcast when something as irresponsible as this is being put before the parliament. To have a public discussion on a national security issue about what criteria ASIO use and who is currently subjected to an assessment would have to be the most irresponsible thing you could do. But it's not the first time this person has been irresponsible, because this lack of responsibility has paved his whole career. You only have to look at the time delay. It wasn't much more than the six-second delay on radio between Mike Burgess as the director-general of ASIO telling people to cool the temperature and this guy running along with a bucket of kerosene saying, 'Where can I throw it on the fire?' And he's got form on trying to divide the Australian community. Look at who he said he won't fight for. Look at who he said we should all be suspicious of. At the moment we've got a debate where he's wanting to go after Palestinians, but before that it was Africans, Lebanese people and Muslims. Granted he hasn't tried to declare war on every migrant community; he did stand up for white South African farmers. We remember that. The SPEAKER: The Leader of the House will pause. The Manager of Opposition Business? Mr Fletcher: On standing order 90—that all imputations of improper motives to a member shall be considered highly disorderly—we've just heard the Leader of the House going for several minutes attributing a whole range of improper motives to the Leader of the Opposition. It's a breach of the standing orders, and he should be asked to comply with the standing orders. The SPEAKER: If that were to apply, the member for Wannon and the Leader of the Opposition would not have been able to give their speeches, because they were so broad in their comments. I'll just ask all members to uphold standing orders. Mr BURKE: Thank you very much, Mr Speaker, and let me put it in different terms: what would be the motive for someone saying that we should lower our national security principles and let visa applicants know if we're doing a security assessment on them? What would be the motive for that? I can't think of a single motive that's in the national interests of Australia. I can think of a motive that might be in the political day-to-day media-cycle interests of the Leader of the Opposition. But if he's willing to sacrifice the national security interests of Australia to try to get a grab up in social media now, then that's his motive. It's not the government's motive. It's not my motive. You won't find me saying that if we're conducting a national security assessment on someone we ought to do it publicly, that we ought to phone a friend and let them know we're doing it. You won't find this government doing that. And what sort of motivation has somebody got? I've got to say, if those opposite reckon it's a proper motive, what's the proper motive in this? Is it to publicly disclose all the criteria that ASIO uses? Wow! In what universe does any security agency on the planet publicly disclose all its criteria? In what universe do they do that? Yet the Leader of the Opposition is calling for that to happen now. I must say, I haven't seen his shadow home affairs spokesperson call for something as off the wall as what's being moved in the House right now. I haven't heard his shadow defence spokesperson call for something like that. And we do share confidential briefings with the opposition. We do make sure that that's happened, as they did when we were in opposition. But to share it with the world, to share it on the floor of the House of Representatives, is one of the most irresponsible things—and he knows it. He knows this is the wrong thing to do. Do the security agencies for the United States make their criteria public? Which countries in the world, when they're conducting a security assessment on someone, let them know? With those opposite it's, 'Oh, the Prime Minister this; the Prime Minister that.' But name the countries that do it—because they don't. The Leader of the Opposition has moved this motion today because the man is irresponsible and a sook, and the country doesn't like either. People have never put up with someone who's a sook, someone who, because they're not on the treasury benches, because at a point in time they're not running the nation, is willing to have the most extraordinary tantrum. We've got used to the tantrums they throw on economic responsibility. We've got used to the fact that they'll throw a tantrum and if they can't be in charge of housing policy they'll try to stop houses from being built. We've got used to the fact that on policy issue after policy issue they'll vote with the Greens because they can't be in charge, that they'll throw their bat and ball in the air and go away. But I never thought they'd play that game on national security. I never thought they'd play that game on our ASIO systems. I never thought they'd call for what has always been confidential and move a motion of the floor of the parliament saying that all this should be made public. I'm going after what he has put in writing and moved on the floor of this House. Look at the expression on the face of the Leader of the Opposition right now. It shows his attitude to national security. In contrast to that, we've got a government led by a prime minister that will not and has not compromised on national security, that will not and has not attacked our security agencies, a prime minister who has made sure that every step of the way we have kept the thresholds on national security that were already there. Whether we have been in government or opposition, I have never seen something as irresponsible as what is before the House right now. I move: That the debate be adjourned. The SPEAKER: The question before the House is that, on the motion moved by the Leader of the Opposition, the debate be adjourned.