Mr BEAZLEY (2:06 PM) —My question is addressed to the Prime Minister. Prime Minister, given your present commitment to return the MV Tampa to international waters, what is your comprehensive solution to the situation beyond this? In particular, what are you proposing to do if the ship returns to Australian waters?

Mr HOWARD (Prime Minister) —There are a number of aspects of that question which are hypothetical and I will ignore those. I do not do that in reliance on some point of procedure but rather, given the nature of the issue, I do not think that it is appropriate that I engage in hypothetical responses. Perhaps it might even be appropriate for the Leader of the Opposition not to engage in hypothetical questions.

The Leader of the Opposition asked me a question, and I point out to the Leader of the Opposition that, in response to your first question, I have already outlined the general intention of the government, and that position remains firm. As to what may occur after that, I can inform the Leader of the Opposition that quite a number of discussions have taken place today, and further discussions will be occurring later in the day. At this stage it is not appropriate for me to canvass the substance of those, but when it is I will hope to be in a position to talk further, initially on a confidential basis, with the Leader of the Opposition and later, if it is appropriate and I have sufficient information, I will inform the House. Obviously, this remains a very complex and difficult situation, but one unalterable fact emerges—that is, we are resolute in defending the sovereignty of this country. We are determined to have a consistent position. We did not seek this difficulty—

Opposition members interjecting—

Mr HOWARD —One of the things that is emerging from this is the way in which once again the Leader of the Opposition is trying to walk both sides of the street on this issue. One minute the Leader of the Opposition is saying that he supports what the government is doing and the next minute, as he did last night, he is accusing the government of trying to engage in wedge politics. Yesterday at 2 o'clock the government is receiving the full support of the opposition; by half past six in the evening we are engaging in wedge politics. I wonder what happened to the Australian Labor Party between now and then.

Honourable members interjecting—

Mr SPEAKER —I expect the Prime Minister and all members of the House to be heard in silence.

Mr HOWARD —I think it is appropriate in the context of that to just place on record with the parliament some of the matters surrounding the legislation that was rejected by the Senate last night. During the course of that debate I put to the Leader of the Opposition, given the reservations that he had expressed about the legislation during the debate, what I thought was the eminently reasonable proposition that the legislation should have a sunset clause of six months; in other words, it would expire on a date in February 2002. That would have allowed adequate time for the public and both sides of politics to determine whether the legislation had the draconian impact claimed by the Leader of the Opposition—a draconian impact alleged by the Leader of the Opposition and predicated on an assumption that an Australian minister would behave with reckless indifference to human life. That was the whole basis of the attack.

Mr HOWARD —That was the allegation that you made. It was one of the worst allegations that I have heard made by the Leader of the Opposition. It is one thing to criticise a person's politics, but to actually say and infer that a minister of either your party or my party or the National Party would behave in a way that would endanger human life is about as reprehensible a statement as a political leader can make. It is absolutely reprehensible.

We made that suggestion and the Leader of the Opposition, after consultation with his colleagues, came back and said to me, `No, that six-month sunset clause is unacceptable.' He did then say to me, recalling his words as best I can, `We would be willing to give you a Tampa specific clause. I could get a group headed up by Michael Costello to sit down and negotiate with the government about the form of that Tampa specific legislation.' I said that we believed that it was appropriate for there to be more abundant legal caution and to reinforce our legal position. I thought it was appropriate that we had the legislation in the form presented by the government. We were prepared to compromise in relation to the sunset clause, but, as he was not willing to accept that, that would appear to be the end of the matter.

Recalling that conversation, I am now fascinated to pick up a resolution of the federal parliamentary Labor caucus which deals with the legislation. It says a few critical things about the legislation, essentially repeating what was said in the parliament last night. I will not weary the House with a repetition of that, but the penultimate dot point reads as follows:

we have no argument, of course, with the provisioning of the vessel and attending to genuine medical needs—

We have no particular argument with that last one. But the first one is the additional condition that emerged in our discussions last night about the safe destination being found for the vessel. What in effect that does—and anybody who thinks for a moment will know what that simply means—is to give every country an out except Australia. What fundamentally that is doing is telegraphing to the rest of the world that all you have to do is to say no.

If a bill in that form were the only law on which we could rely, there would be no way that the Tampa would ever leave Australian territorial waters. Fortunately, there is other law available and, as I said last night and I say again today, it remains our legal advice that we are in a sound legal position in relation to what is being done. But it is instructive that, if we were left to the Tampa specific bill contemplated by the federal parliamentary Labor caucus, there would be an almost absolute guarantee that the Tampa would never leave Australian territorial waters. That represents a very long journey in the space of less than 24 hours from the principled position that I thought the Leader of the Opposition was taking yesterday afternoon when he supported the government's position.

Honourable members interjecting—

Mr SPEAKER —There are few things I would find more regrettable on a day as significant as this than having to require a member to leave the chamber for 24 hours or even one hour. But if any members are questioning whether I am prepared to do so they need only continue to behave as they have been behaving recently.

Mr Griffin —Where is your parrot?

Mr SPEAKER —I imagine the electors of Bruce would not be amused to discover that their member lacked the discipline to enable him to stay in the House.