Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Minister for Justice) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member the Bennelong for that question. He is one of the members on this side of the House who will never waver in their determination to protect the security of the Australian people.

When we came to office we found that our law enforcement and security agencies were under-resourced and pleading with us for the legislative changes they needed to do their jobs. In response, we have boosted counterterrorism funding for our law enforcement, intelligence and security agencies by over $1.3 billion, including $6 million provided by the Treasurer in the most recent budget. We have secured passage of four tranches of legislation to strengthen our agencies' ability to investigate, monitor, arrest and prosecute home-grown violent extremists and returning foreign fighters.

This morning we had the shadow Attorney-General out there, claiming that the former Rudd-Gillard-Rudd governments have a similarly impressive record on national security. But we know that you can never believe what they say; you need to look at what they did to set the record straight.

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