Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2025-2026

Mr HILL (Bruce—Assistant Minister for Citizenship, Customs and Multicultural Affairs and Assistant Minister for International Education) (19:26): I thank government members for their contributions. I also acknowledge the contribution of the member for Warringah, and I will pass on the questions regarding NEMA funding to the Minister for Emergency Management so she can respond directly in a different forum.

As for the rest of the contributions, I was listening carefully; I was trying to write down questions. My friend the member for Fisher made two contributions but asked no questions; it was just a bit of a rant. As for the rest of them, though, their hearts were so in it.

They were so deeply committed to finding out what's in the government's budget that they ran away. They quit. They cut and ran.

They're following the fine example of the immediate past shadow minister for home affairs, who also quit his job on Friday, leaving the former shadow minister for home affairs to front Senate estimates this week. They're so committed to national security that they literally quit and ran away. Small mercies, Deputy Speaker Small—I recall fondly your contribution yesterday, which seemed to revolve around students being Furbies, cats and dogs in the education debate, so they're following in a fine tradition.

With respect to the one question that was posed—does the government have what it takes to keep Australians safe—the answer is, yes, we do. As to the obsession with Australian citizens returning from Syrian IDP camps, if you want the answer to that, I refer you to my interview this morning on Sky News and I refer you to the Minister for Home Affairs' extensive answer on this in question time today.

The government has not provided repatriation or assistance for these people to return. The answer was the same a month ago, it was the same yesterday, it's the same today and it'll be the same tomorrow, because that's the truth of it. Our security agencies are constantly watching this cohort offshore.

If, as Australian citizens, they under their own steam return to Australia, as is their right as citizens, then we watch them here. We take advice from the security agencies. The member for Fadden, I think it was, is relatively new, so we will give him the benefit of the doubt.

Maybe he hadn't cleaned out his ears in question time and didn't hear the answers that were given: exactly the same scenarios occurred multiple times under the former government. What it boils down to is this: if the opposition don't trust our security agencies and the people who lead them, the same people who led them when they were in government, the same people they know—the member for Fisher and I served on the intelligence and security committee—then they should just say so.

If they don't trust the work of Australia's security agencies, then say so. Otherwise the bizarre kind of 'members after dark' echo chamber that we heard over there should go back to whatever weird WhatsApp chat group they like to hang out on and hate on each other, because that's their main sport, the far right and the further right of the now Liberal Party.

I don't call them the modern Liberal Party; it is today's Liberal Party—I wouldn't ascribe the word 'modern' to them. As for the rest, we do have a migration strategy, a fundamental difference between our government and the previous government. We have a migration strategy.

We did a review, we put out a strategy, and we're implementing it. You can't point to that in the nine or so years—a decade really—of decay and disfunction and division that we saw from those opposite. I'm happy to answer questions, but there really were no questions; it was just miserable rants, and they ran away.

So here we are. Anyway, there you go! It's a matter for them, how they choose to use their time in opposition.

They weren't a very good government, and they're not a very good opposition. Proposed expenditure agreed to. Ordered that consideration in detail of the bill be made an order of the day for the next sitting.

Federation Chamber adjourned at 19:31