Making Australia positive again

Many have said that the refugee issue should not be a big issue. And I agree. It should not be. But it is.

This issue has now moved beyond one of boats. It has moved beyond the location of processing. It has even moved beyond one of people.

This has grown now to become an issue about the soul of our country, an issue about the content of our collective character. It is now a debate about who we are and how we wish to be perceived.

Whatever we decide as policy, we should aim to enhance and not detract from our country's international reputation with our debate on alternative policy solutions.

We are an intelligent country that can engage in difficult debate and we should not debate in sound bites. The asylum debate is difficult and it does our country no good to simply say 'stop the boats'. But nor does it do justice to a complicated issue to say 'just let them land'. We need to find a way to engage the community in a deep and detailed dialogue on a complicated issue.

We have in this country been debating the wrong issue. The location of processing – Australia, Malaysia or Nauru is the wrong discussion. The harder and more critical issue is that of resettlement once a refugee is processed. If you fix the resettlement issue, people will not even get on boats.

But resettlement is tough as it involves all countries in our region agreeing on what their 'fair share' of the asylum seekers is. PNG's fair share. Nauru's fair share. New Zealand's fair share. Indonesia's fair share. Our fair share.

Our policy should be about who comes to our country and the circumstances in which they come, not a policy on who we stop from coming to our country and the circumstances in which we stop them.

Ours should be a 'controlled entry policy' not a 'Border Protection' policy. It should be regional and one based on the opportunities we have to strengthen regional alliances, and the opportunities that come from a continued broad mix of our national ethnic make-up.

This is but one example. This is where we start.

We can and must 'Make Australia Positive Again'."

That is the Speech I would like to hear and I would vote for whichever party leader who would give it.