"The truth is I was Labor's last immigration minister and you have a right to hear directly from me about what that job involved, the choices that involved and how that lends us to think very carefully when we use words like 'compassion, [that] we actually know the exact context."
"The claim that the Government made that there were 21 measures in it is wrong. We said we wanted to wait till we saw the bill because we didn't to trust that it would be as they described and it's turned out we were exactly right for saying that. The Government has been entirely deceptive with this. And if their first action is to lie to the Australian people about what was meant to be their centrepiece bill, that really tells you want the [Malcolm] Turnbull Government's going to be about."
3 likes
About the author
Same author
More quotes by Tony Burke
"It's a bit much describing it as a moral challenge from a government that's tripled the deficit and added $100 billion to net debt."
"No doubt, you've got a parliament now - I mean, Malcolm Turnbull says he'll work with the parliament he's got. He's got a parliament where a majority of the members of parliament want that law to be changed. He's got a parliament where there's a majority in each House who have publicly said they want to have a Royal Commission into banks."
"Malcolm Turnbull, more than anyone, changes month to month on a range of issues."
"We're going to prevent politics from abusing the parliament and going off playing politics around the country when they should be here at work."
"The challenge we've got is that the Government does not have a working majority. They don't."