Senator CARR (Victoria—Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research) (14:00): I thank Senator Abetz for his question. What we have seen of course is that the opposition appear not to be pursuing their interest in Qantas given the revelations that Mr Hockey was obviously involved from quite early on in the arrangements with Freehills and Qantas. Senator Brandis: Mr President, on a point of order, there is no relevance remotely to the question in this answer. It is not prologued; it is not prefaced. You should not, with respect, Mr President, allow a minister to flagrantly breach the standing orders and get away with it without pulling him up at once. Senator Chris Evans: On the point of order, Senator Brandis seems to just like the sound of his own voice. The minister is 21 seconds into his answer and Senator Brandis is on his feet making a spurious point of order. I would ask you to rule against Senator Brandis and allow the minister to continue to inform the Senate in response to the question. The PRESIDENT: I am listening very closely to the minister's answer. The minister has still one minute and 39 seconds remaining out of the two minutes in which to answer the question. Senator CARR: The government did not pursue the Nauru option, as was previously the position under the conservative government, because it did not work. As an approach to dealing with the processing of people coming to this country by boat, the policy pursued by the previous government saw the overwhelming number of people sent to Nauru end up either in Australia or New Zealand. What we saw as a result of that policy was that there was no effective deterrent whatsoever in the approach that was taken by the previous government, because the people smugglers understood precisely what was going on. Under the previous government's decision to use Nauru, we saw some 1,900 people arriving by boat seeking asylum. Of those that were processed and found to be refugees, 95 per cent ended up being settled in Australia or New Zealand. In other words, Nauru had a 95 per cent failure rate in stopping the boats. It was a similar story with the TPVs. Over 8,000 people were actually encouraged to jump on a rickety boat in the two years after they were introduced. That was not a deterrent. Many of those people were women and children, and ultimately 90 per cent of those that were granted TPVs— (Time expired) Honourable senators interjecting— The PRESIDENT: I remind senators that if they wish to debate the answer, the time for doing so is at the end of question time.