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

I know those on the other side are sensitive on this issue, and they should be. They should be very sensitive on this issue, because under that side of the House they ran a taxi service. They ran a water taxi service and they were open for business for that water taxi service. Under that side of the House we measured illegal arrivals by boat in the thousands per month. Under this government, they are measured in the hundreds.

Where these people will be processed is on Nauru and Manus Island, because they are being processed offshore. That was one of the many policies that were put in place by the previous Howard government that were abolished by those on that side of the House along with temporary protection visas. They had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, to restore offshore processing, and they restored it under protest. When they restored it, it was underfunded, it was incompetently put together, it did not send the signal and it did not provide the effective implementation that makes the policy work. Any and every measure to deter boat arrivals, regardless of who the author is, will always be more effective in the hands of a coalition government that believes in a border protection policy and a border protection initiative than in the hands of Labor, who are double minded, divided and always deferring to the Greens.

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