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

I can confirm, as the Prime Minister already has, that it has been six months since the last successful people-smuggling venture to Australia. Frankly, under Operation Sovereign Borders, that is just another day at the office. It is another day at the office for the men and women who comprise the Operation Sovereign Borders team, whether they are in our Navy, our Customs and Border Protection Service, the Department of Immigration or our Federal Police. All of those agencies are working together to achieve the results we have achieved to date. Together with the Prime Minister, I thank them for their service. This House should also thank them for their service and what they have been able to achieve.

There are alternative approaches and there have been other approaches in the past. The previous government engaged in a reckless, conceited and dangerous experiment from 2007 onwards. The purpose of that experiment was to try and prove that John Howard had it wrong on border protection. They abolished every brick in the wall of border protection that John Howard and his government had built up over the term of that government. What was the result? More than 50,000 people turning up on more than 800 boats; almost 1,200 people dying at sea; 15,000 people denied permanent visas under our Refugee and Humanitarian Program; and detention centres being built every other day and then burning down under the same government that built them. It was chaos, it was cost and it was tragic. That was the result of the alternative approaches and the experiment.

See this speech in context