QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

Senator WATT (Queensland—Minister for the Environment and Water) (14:19): Thanks, Senator Waters. I actually had a briefing about this from Minister Burke's office in preparation for question time, and I suggested to them that I would put a lot of money on the Greens political party trying to draw some parallel with ICE, so congratulations for being nothing if not predictable—very predictable.

It does make preparing for question time a lot easier when you know exactly what the Greens are going to ask you, because all the Greens are ever interested in doing is using political issues as political footballs, and they've done it again today. Well done. At least you haven't had a split this week, but the day is still young.

Of course what Senator Waters is proposing is utterly ridiculous. What the government is proposing to do is to ensure that those who overstay their visas do not remain in Australia. It is a simple principle of migration law that, if you do not have a valid visa, then you lose your entitlement to remain in Australia.

Now, what we know is that, in around 2015, changes were made to our migration system which meant that the resources deployed towards removing people from Australia were devoted towards removing people who had committed criminal offences. That has meant that immigration facilities, detention facilities, have been pretty much fully utilised to house criminals who are awaiting deportation, rather than being used to remove those who have lost their entitlement to remain in Australia.

So I can only assume that what the Greens are suggesting is that we should have a system in Australia where, when your visa expires, you should be able to remain here indefinitely, because that's essentially what you're arguing for. What we are saying is that— (Time expired) The PRESIDENT: Senator Waters, first supplementary?