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

We will do whatever is necessary within the law and in accordance with our values as a decent and humane society to stop the boats and to ensure that they stay stopped. That is what we will do. We will do whatever is necessary within the law to stop the boats and to ensure that they stay stopped. What will Labor do? We know what they did in government: they started the boats. Because they lacked the intestinal fortitude to make the decisions that were needed, under members opposite we had more than 50,000 illegal arrivals by sea, we had almost a thousand illegal boats and, tragically, we had more than a thousand deaths at sea. Compare all of that and the fact that there was an $11 billion budget blow-out in border protection, and it pales into insignificance. What this government has done is that we have stopped the boats. I want to say to the Leader of the Opposition, who asked this tawdry question: not only is what this government has done legal; it is moral. It is absolutely moral because the most moral thing to do is to stop the boats and save the lives.

Mr Perrett interjecting—

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