Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Hansard source

We have been able to stop the boats. It is an issue, which of course is ongoing because people smugglers are still lurking in the shadows waiting for Bill Shorten to be elected at the next election. That is what they are waiting for because they know that Labor is weak when it comes to border protection.

We have not had a successful people-smuggling venture to this country in over 300 days and we will continue to work with the agencies to make sure that we can stare down this threat. The Australian public knows that if you cannot manage your borders you cannot manage national security, and I think that is very telling. There is, of course, an enormous dividend because we have been able to—at the same time as we have been able to stop people coming illegally to our country by boat—increase the numbers of people who come to our country under the humanitarian and refugee programs. In actual fact, we will grow the program so that an extra 7½ thousand people will be resettled in Australia over the coming years. In particular—this is a very important point—the government has committed a minimum of 2,200 places for Syrians and 2,200 places for Iraqis in 2014-15. That is the human dividend of being able to clean up Labor's mess—to stop the boats and to stop the drownings at sea.

The Australian public must ask why Labor cannot adopt the successful policies of this government. I will not win the applause of my colleagues here but I want to give the ABC a plug because tonight on the ABC we see the second episode of The Killing Season. There is a sense of deja vue coming across in this place. All of us watched Labor tear itself apart in the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years and I look across to the smiling assassin. She has her eyes on this bloke. Do not worry about that, Madam Speaker. If people wonder why Bill Shorten is soft when it comes to border protection, they should have a look behind him.

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