Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Hansard source

I am more than happy to happy to concede to the member for Cook that the number of boats fell. But what actually counts is the number of people arriving. I do not really mind whether they come in big boats or little boats. The member for Cook tends to get caught up in these things.

I now want to move to the next matter regarding temporary protection visas, which is the number of women and children coming by boat. This has been a matter of some legitimate public discussion over recent days for obvious reasons. One of the several harsh elements of temporary protection visas was that they did not allow family reunions. What did that mean? That meant that more women and children got on boats and came to Australia. That was the result of the temporary protection regime. Between 1999 and 2001, the proportion of women and children among Iraqi and Afghan unauthorised boat arrivals more than tripled.

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