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

I thank the member for his question and his interest in this issue. In August 2008 the former government made the worst decision that it made in government in abolishing temporary protection visas. And last night Labor and the Greens did it again. The definition of stupidity is doing the same thing twice and expecting a different result, and those opposite might wish to take that counsel.

The previous government, when they abolished temporary protection visas, gave the people smugglers a product to sell, and that product was permanent residence in Australia. Last night in the Senate they teamed up with the real opposition—the Greens, the ones who are directing the opposition in the Greens—and they decided that they were going to seal the deal, that they wanted to honour the deal that people smugglers had made. People smugglers had made promises to the 33,000 people who are here—the 33,000 people who arrived under their watch—and they wanted to seal the deal with a promise of permanent residency.

The result of that decision, as the member has asked about, was chaos, cost and tragedy. Over 50,000 people arrived—more than 8,300 children—after they abolished temporary protection visas, at a cost blow-out of $11.6 billion. The results were catastrophic. The lesson is that you have to stand for what you believe in when it comes to border protection, and no self-respecting government would ever honour the promise of a people smuggler, but that is what the opposition did last night in the Senate with the Greens.

See this speech in context