Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Justice, Customs and Border Protection) Share this | Hansard source

I was the deputy chair of the SIEV221 incident inquiry. SIEV221 was the boat which went down at Christmas Island in December 2010. That boat came under its own power and steamed around the rocks before it floundered in a dreadful sea. The boat came in and out with the swell in what were the worst conditions that anyone had seen at Christmas Island.

That incident in December 2010 has been followed by other dreadful incidents, including the two we have seen this week and the one that is unfolding toward our northern border as we speak. Every member of this parliament wants to do something to stop this from happening. The fact that we are currently debating procedure will be judged very harshly by the Australian people.

We believe in offshore processing. We invented offshore processing in the teeth of fierce opposition from others in this parliament and sections of the Australian community. We did so because we believed it was right and we had the resolve to see it through because we believed that it was going to work—and it did. We need to return to a situation where we can process offshore again.

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