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

I most sincerely thank the member for Solomon for her question. She is based in Darwin, the home of many of the assets of the Australian Border Force and many of the personnel who have worked over a number of years in the operation to stop the boats. As people in this place know and as the Australian public knows, it is very important that we stare down the threat of people smugglers. As the shadow minister for immigration in his speech to the conference of the ALP last year said, Labor regretted the loss of 1200 lives as a result of Labor's failure in this public policy area when they were last in government.

The most important thing is to make sure that no government ever again repeats the mistake that Labor made when it was last in power. There were 8000 children who went into detention when the Labor Party was last in power; we have reduced that number down now to fewer than 80—in actual fact, it is 75. It is my determination to be the minister who gets kids out of detention—we will reduce that number to zero.

The people smugglers in Indonesia now are looking at the statements made by the Leader of the Opposition, by the Prime Minister, by myself, by state premiers—

See this speech in context