Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Hansard source

They are faster; they are quicker. This government want to blame international push factors rather than face up to their own responsibility. The difference—if you listen to the government argument for a second—is that, even when we did experience a surge in arrivals over the period of 1999, 2000 and 2001, we did something about it. We took direct action, and in one year the number of boats went from over 40 to one. In that same year, in 2002, the number of global asylum applications was roughly, on average, the same as in the year before.

This government want to pretend that they are dealing with an international situation without precedent—maybe it is a rolling national security crisis. Maybe they are going to use those sorts of terms to explain what is going on. But the truth is that they dealing with a problem which the coalition dealt with—but we solved it. As the coalition government we introduced policies which brought the boats to zero. This government are in a position of failing to act and failing to get results. They are in a position where they are in complete denial.

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