Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Home Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

As I was saying, this government has dedicated more resources to deal with this matter than any previous government. If we were to accept the logic of those opposite that there was an increased number of arrivals as a result of something that was done by this government then one would have to conclude that the Howard government did something in 1999, because the greatest surge of arrivals in our history happened under the previous government. That is the reality. They like to pretend otherwise, but the greatest number of arrivals and the largest year of arrivals, as the former minister for immigration and the former Attorney-General know, happened under the previous government. We know that this is a complex issue. Everybody in this House, if they want to be fair dinkum, knows it is a complex issue.

In relation to the question that has been asked, of course we are working very hard with our neighbours within the region. We are working very hard with transit—

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