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

To provide the information that the opposition has requested would be to violate the communications protocols which have been established by the Joint Agency Task Force for Operation Sovereign Borders. To do so, as I said, would aid people smugglers. I know that those opposite got everything they wanted when they were last in government, together with the cheers of the Greens. They were able to abolish all the measures that worked, and they invited the 50,000 arrivals, which they duly advised to the people-smuggling audience all around the world and encouraged them to keep coming. This government is not going to engage in the practices of the former government, and that is why we are seeing a 75 per cent reduction in arrivals. What remains available to the government is to implement the full suite of measures that we took to the Australian people and, most importantly, the resolve to back it up, which the previous government dismally lacked.

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