The Labor senator Stephen Conroy says he is “absolutely gobsmacked” to hear Tony Abbott now wishes he had supported the former Gillard government’s people-swap deal with Malaysia, rather than opposed it. Abbott admitted on Friday to wondering whether his decision to oppose the former Gillard government’s so-called “Malaysia solution” in 2011 had contributed to the “hyper-partisanship” that now poisons Australian politics. “The 800 boat people that could have been sent to Malaysia was less than a month’s intake, even then,” Abbott said. “I think it’s very telling that Tony Abbott himself said that he wishes he’d gone with Labor’s Malaysia solution a few years ago and we could have perhaps avoided what we’re seeing now,” Shorten said. The Labor senator Sam Dastyari told the ABC’s Insiders program that the Turnbull government had a “secrecy fetish”.

Source: The Guardian August 14, 2016 04:07 UTC