10th May 2011 – Representatives Motions - Asylum Seekers - Let a vote happen

The majority voted against letting a vote happen. In parliamentary jargon, they voted against suspending the standing orders.

Motion text

That so much of standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the Member for Warringah moving immediately—That this House suspend proceedings forthwith so that the Prime Minister can stand before the Parliament and explain why:

(1) the Prime Minister refuses to consider an offshore detention centre in Nauru because, as she said in an interview on 8 July 2010, “I would rule out anywhere that is not a signatory to the Refugee Convention” yet now plans to send asylum seekers to Malaysia who hasn’t signed it either;

(2) the Prime Minister decried the use of Manus Island and the Howard Government’s so called “Pacific Solution” as “costly, unsustainable and wrong as a matter of principle” in 2003 yet is now desperately negotiating with the PNG Government to re-open Manus Island;

(3) the Prime Minister has damaged our national interest by agreeing to a deal with Malaysia that will see us accept five of their refugees for every one of the asylum seekers we send to them - with Australian taxpayers footing the complete bill;

(4) the Government allowed three people, identified by the NT Coroner as responsible for the fire aboard the people smuggling boat, SIEV36 which killed five people and injured 40, to be granted permanent residency in Australia;

(5) it took only three hours for the NSW police to remove protestors from the roof of the Immigration Minister’s office yet no action was taken against protestors on the roof of Villawood for 11 days;

(6) rioters at Christmas Island faced no penalty for burning down buildings and risking the lives of people at the facility;

(7) the Prime Minister promised an East Timor solution before the election knowing very well that it was opposed by the Government of East Timor and was nothing more than a dishonest election smokescreen; and

(8) the Prime Minister doesn’t just come clean and reinstate the Howard Government policies that worked rather than try to maintain this elaborate fiction that Labor has a plan to stop the boats.