Parliament
Upon the resignation of former Liberal leader Andrew Peacock, Georgiou was preselected to contest the 1994 Kooyong by-election for the Liberal Party. He won the safe Liberal seat on 64 per cent of the two-party vote against the main contender, the Greens.
In 2005, Georgiou was one of a small number of Liberal parliamentarians who expressed disagreement with the government's policy of mandatory detention for asylum seekers. He began speaking out against the policy in June and began drafting a private member's bill aimed at softening the policy. On 17 June, Prime Minister John Howard announced a shift in that policy, allowing families in detention with children to enter the community and ensuring that long-term detainees would have their cases reviewed regularly. Georgiou was given a large amount of credit for the policy change.
On 11 August 2006, Georgiou joined Russell Broadbent and Judi Moylan in crossing the floor to vote against the Migration Amendment (Designated Unauthorised Arrivals) Bill, that would force all asylum seekers to be processed offshore.
Read more about this topic: Petro Georgiou
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