Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

there were at its peak almost 2,000 children in immigration detention. Almost 2,000 children who had arrived illegally by boat were in immigration detention. When this government took office there were 1,400 children in immigration detention. There are less than 200 now. And the reason why the children are leaving detention is because the boats have stopped.

It would be a lot easier to take this question from the Greens member of this House more seriously if he and his colleagues in the Senate and elsewhere had been readier to give credit where it is due. This government has stopped the boats. In stopping the boats, we have stopped the deaths at sea. In stopping the boats, we have allowed the children to leave detention. That is as it should be. Not only have we been able to stop the deaths and stop the children staying in detention but we have been able to run—to restart, in effect—a decent humanitarian program, because those coming to Australia are now being chosen by us and not by the people smugglers. That is the achievement of this government.

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