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

and they are desperate to find an opportunity to recast that message into a message of opportunity for vulnerable people who would be willing to pay money to get on a boat, potentially lose their life at sea and to settle in Australia. I am not going to—and the government is not going to—allow that situation to arise. We have dealt with this threat; we have stopped these boats; we are turning back boats where it is safe to do so; we are dealing with people in a compassionate and humane way. We have for a long period of time, as I have informed the House before, had ongoing discussions with third countries to see whether or not we can provide settlement arrangements. But we have been consistent in saying that if you seek to come to Australia illegally by boat, you will not settle in this country.

The Labor Party has at its conference, and on some occasions since, repeated that message by saying, 'We are adopting the policy of the Liberal Party.' But that is starting to unravel: we see in the caucus of the Labor Party today and we have seen over recent days the Deputy Leader of the Opposition trying to carve herself out a separate space in relation to this important debate. Bearing in mind that, if the Labor Party wins the next election and Bill Shorten becomes Prime Minister, that person—the deputy leader—would be around the National Security Committee of cabinet and would be undermining what the Labor Party says its policy is today. What we know from the past is what we know now, and that is that the Labor Party will go to an election, promising one thing and, if they are elected and get into government, they will do the dead opposite.

Opposition members interjecting—

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