Julia Gillard voted very strongly against turning back asylum boats when possible

The majority voted against a motion proposed by Liberal MP Scott Morrison.

The motion was to amend a previous motion proposed by Greens MP Adam Bandt. The wording of Morrison's motion is the following:

That all words after "House" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

(1) notes that the Government has accepted the Coalition’s policy of offshore processing of asylum seekers on Nauru and Manus Island; and (2) calls upon the Government to implement the full suite of the Coalition’s successful policies and calls upon the government to immediately: (a) restore temporary protection visas for all offshore entry persons found to be refugees; (b) issue new instructions to Northern Command to commence to turn back boats where it is safe to do so; (c) use existing law to remove the benefit of the doubt on a person's identity where there is a reasonable belief that a person has deliberately discarded their documentation; and (d) restore the Bali Process to once again focus on deterrence and border security.

Background to the bill

The bill was originally introduced in the House of Representatives as the Migration Legislation Amendment (Offshore Processing and Other Measures) Bill 2011. It was drafted in response to the High Court's judgement in Plaintiff M70/2011 v Minister for Immigration and Citizenship () HCA 32, which put an end to the Labor Government's Malaysia Solution policy.(Read more about the decision on Wikipedia here and on ABC News here. Read more about the effect of this decision on the Malaysia Solution here.)

To this end, the bill amends the Migration Act 1958 to replace the existing framework for taking offshore entry persons to another country for assessment of their claims to be refugees. The bill also replaces discretionary detention with mandatory detention for all asylum seekers at an offshore place, such as Christmas Island, and alters the Immigration (Guardianship of Children) Act 1946 in relation to making and implementing any decision to remove, deport or take a non-citizen child from Australia by overriding the guardianship obligations under that Act.

References

The majority voted against a motion introduced by Liberal MP Scott Morrison, which read:

That this house:

(1) notes that:

(a) the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (Refugees Convention) states that ‘contracting States shall apply the provisions of this Convention to refugees without discrimination as to race, religion or country of origin’;

(b) the Government suspended the processing of asylum seeker applications from Afghanistan on 9 April 2010; and

(c) there are more than 5000 persons currently being detained by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship on the mainland and Christmas Island;

(2) condemns the Rudd Gillard Government for their imposition of a discriminatory freeze of the assessment of asylum applications for persons from Afghanistan arriving in Australia; and

(3) calls for the introduction of proven policies proposed by the Coalition to address unprecedented irregular maritime arrivals to Australia, including:

(a) the application of temporary visas for all persons who have arrived illegally in Australia;

(b) the reopening of a third country processing centre in Nauru for irregular maritime arrivals to Australia;

(c) being prepared to turn around boats where the circumstances permit;

(d) streamline the appeals process by removing the panel system and replace with a review by a single case officer as practiced by the UNHCR;

(e) presuming against refugee status determination for persons who are reasonably believed to have destroyed or discarded their identity documentation; and

(f) return unsuccessful claimants for refugee status to their country of origin.