a conscience vote on all matters as some posters are suggesting is the first step to legislative chaos. At every election, we have to chance to examine a party's platform and vote for or against it. If individual members of parliament--particularly those in safe seats or who are close to retirement--are completely free to decide for themselves how they'll vote then the government will never know whether the considerable amount of time it takes to draft new laws will have been wasted. And so on. It sounds quite noble in principle but in the real world it would create chaos. If a party wins an election by getting a majority, then its given a mandate to pass the policies set out in its platform.
Individual members have an opportunity in the party room to try and convince their colleagues of the correctness of their case. If they can't then bad luck. If people don't like whats happening they're free to reject the party at the next election.
What Georgiou did was almost certianly not what his very conservative electorate (Menzies old seat) wanted but he doesn't care. He's safe. And his lawyer friends are getting ready for the taxpayer-funded legal feast that the refugee issue has become.
