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

I thank the member for Forde for his question. I can tell him that the impact of Operation Sovereign Borders has been that, since 19 December, there has been no successful maritime people-smuggling venture to Australia—not one. Not one since 19 December. That is a critical period of time because that is the time when we moved into the second phase, effectively, of Operation Sovereign Borders, where turn-backs were introduced as part of the set of policy measures that were being put in place by the government. So there were no successful ventures.

I am asked about the savings, about what the cost might have been had these policies not been changed. I can inform the House that in the budget there are savings as a result of the success this government is having in stopping the boats. There are savings in the budget of $2.5 billion. It reads like this over this year and the forward estimates: $212 million saved this year; $960 million saved next year; $808 million saved the year after; $337.2 million in the second-last year of the out years; and $192.2 million. Stopping the boats saves this budget, year on year on year on year. Under those opposite, it cost us year on year on year—budget blow-outs of $11.5 billion. And those opposite come in here and lecture this side on economic management—unbelievable!

The truth is, though, that the savings are actually far greater, because as we know the budget is based on the midyear estimates, so these are just the savings off the MYEFO. If I go back to the PEFO—as we know, the PEFO is where the officials tell the truth about what the budget really is from the previous government. That is what it does.

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