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

I thank the honourable member very much for his question, and thank him for the work that he does as chair of the backbench committee on immigration. He is a very strong supporter of the coalition's border protection policies.

There is a contrast, though, of course, between the resolute stance on this side of the House in relation to border protection issues and that in relation to the Labor Party. I see again today media reports of a split in caucus when it comes to the regional-processing-centre arrangements and the determination to stop the boats, which the Leader of the Opposition speaks about a lot. But he has a divided team, as Kevin Rudd did, and no capacity, if he were to be elected at the next election, to maintain a strong policy of stopping the boats.

The fact is that when the Rudd Labor government was elected in 2007 there were four people in detention—four people in detention, including no children. There were no children whatsoever. It took Labor only a couple of years to see 50,000 people arrive on 800 boats; 1,200 people drowned at sea and over 8,000 children were put into detention, including at the peak almost 2,000 in July 2013. They were forced to open 17 detention centres to deal with the influx of arrivals and it resulted in an $11 billion blowout in this portfolio.

They are hoping and praying that the Australian public has forgotten about the dysfunction of their period when last in government, and, as the media demonstrates today—the reporting out of caucus—they have learnt absolutely nothing.

Yet we on this side of the parliament, with the support of our colleagues, have been able to stare down the scourge of people smugglers. We have been able to stop those drownings at sea. Since I have been in this portfolio, we have not had a successful people-smuggling venture, we have not had a death at sea and we have reduced the number of children in detention down closer to 100, with an absolute determination to get that number closer to zero. As a dividend, we have been able to return $500 million to the budget and we have been able to announce that we will welcome 12,000 people from the Syrian crisis to start a new life in our country. That is what the right policy is about, that is what unity is about and that is what we stand for, in contrast to those opposite.

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