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

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. What I was talking about is the cost of Labor's border failures. Those costs are seen not only in the red ink in the budget but in the costs that individuals are having to wear in terms of their inability to access humanitarian places from offshore—and there are more than 4,000 that will miss out this year because those who have come by boat to Australia have taken their place. That is how our system works, and more than 4,000 people will miss out this year for no other reason than that this stubborn government cannot admit that they got it wrong back in 2008. They should never have removed those policies, and that act has led to the chaos and the carnage that has followed. It continues to this day, and for that government to sit there today and try to shift the blame to an opposition who stand ready, every single day, to support proven policy is a disgrace. It is a lame excuse.

We have a government that has given up on border protection and given in to the Greens, with their community release policies. Next year we will see over 8,000 people in the system as a result of this government's policies. That was confirmed in Senate estimates today. Back in February of this year they said that next year there would be 5,700. Now they are saying there will be over 8,000. The number in community detention and the number of those on bridging visas has doubled in their estimate just in the last few months—and that is before they even admit that arrivals are on the increase, because they are still budgeting on 450 arrivals per month. So what we are going to see next year, on these budget figures, is an increase of $424 million next year. That is $1.1 million extra every single day that taxpayers will have to shell out because this government cannot get over its own stubborn pride when it gets something so catastrophically wrong and continues to cling to failure.

This government needs to reflect on this because these budget figures are going to keep going up. They are going to keep blowing out, and they will continue to be an embarrassment, not only for the minister but also for the Treasurer, who presides over a budget that is sinking—and it is sinking within a fortnight of it being brought into this place. Already, with over 1,000 people turning up in May, the budget figures for the immigration department are in a mess; they are already in tatters. I have no doubt that when we get together again later in the year and we go through these figures again we will be told the same old thing: 'Well, we didn't know that this would continue to go on like this and we didn't think it would cost that much.' Well, if you keep doing the same thing, you cannot expect a different outcome. The outcome we have had from this government on border protection is more boats, more costs, more risks, more expense, more failure, more denial and more lame excuses from a government that has simply given in.

There is nothing wrong—whether it is on our borders or in our great country—that cannot be improved with an election and a change of government. As I move around, that is the message I am getting loud and clear from Australians of all walks of life. Those on the other side know this. They know that they are reaping what they have sown. What they have sown in border protection policy they are now reaping in the blown out budgets, those being denied humanitarian visas because of their own intransigence and incompetence and, of course, the risk of those who continue to get on these dangerous vessels. There is nothing wrong—on our borders or in our country—that a change of government will not improve. (Time expired)

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