Derek McDowell (Labour)

Amendment No. 3 in the name of the Labour Party Senators seeks to draw a line under what has been a difficult and painful issue for the State in recent years. The bottom line is that we were extremely poor in dealing with the influx of refugees and asylum seekers to this country over the past five or six years. We were not properly geared up to deal with it efficiently or humanely. We all acknowledge that it took us a long time — I am not sure that we are there yet — to get a system in place that would allow decisions to be made sufficiently quickly. In many cases, the individuals concerned do not speak English and do not have any sense of how things work here, so they are not in a position to go through complicated legal processes with any confidence.

One merit the Bill has — one could argue, one merit of the constitutional amendment — is that it now provides a degree of certainty. Given that is now the case, it is unreasonable to put thousands of people through a system of individual assessment. The State should draw a line and allow those who had children here prior to February 2003 to remain here.