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

As the show would end, one would turn to the other and say, 'Just when you think things could not get any worse'—just like the government's border protection policy—'something wonderful happens.' The other one would say 'What is that?', and he would get the reply, 'It ends.' That is what the Australian people want to see from this government; they want to see this farce end.

The budget blow-outs of $3.9 billion on this waste, mismanagement and incompetence on our borders have been catastrophic. There was a $208 million blow-out in the additional estimates of 2009-10; a $798 million blow-out in the budget estimates of 2010-11; a $472 million blow-out in the additional estimates of 2010-11; and a $1.528 billion blow-out in the budget estimates in 2011-12. In the most recent additional estimates, there was a blow-out of $866 million. That is how you get to $3.9 billion in blow-outs—by failed border protection policies; by being completely in denial.

Since the riots I referred to, a couple of things have happened. Those riots were a year ago this week. The heart of the problem we have with this government is they are in denial. Who is really running the show? Dr Hawke confirmed the view in evidence to the detention inquiry recently that the asylum seekers got a 'no' and they rioted. There was a build-up in the population within those centres in the detention network. There was a failure of the government to expand that network prior to the election and that led to considerable pressures in the system. At the end of the day, it was sparked off by the fact that a whole bunch of people got a 'no' and they rioted. What has happened since then? The rate of primary acceptance for refugee claims for IMAs has doubled; the number of protection visas given to people has tripled; and the number of 'no' decisions turned to 'yes' on appeal is four out of five. It would seem to me that the rioters got what they wanted.

The people smugglers have certainly had what they wanted for the last four years. They have had a government with failed border protection policies. As those policies have continued to fail, as the government has continued to ramp up the costs, it has undermined the capacity, more broadly, of our border agencies—whether it is Immigration, whether it is AQIS or whether it is Customs and Border Protection—to do the job that we trust them to do. That has resulted in guns turning up in post offices in my electorate. It has resulted in guns getting into this country, and Australians are very concerned about that. That has been exposed today and the government should be ashamed of itself. (Time expired)

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