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

I say thank you very much to the member for his question. He is rock solid, as is every member on this side of the parliament, when it comes to making sure that we have strong and secure borders. There is no better argument for having secure borders than what we have seen in Europe and across the world elsewhere in recent months and recent years, and it is why this government remain absolutely determined to make sure that we send a very clear and consistent message to people smugglers that they will not get back in business.

This government has, over the course of the last 12 months, been able to reduce the number of children in detention. Labor had 2,000 children at its peak in detention. There were 1,200 people who drowned at see when Labor was last in government, in coalition with the Greens. There were 50,000 people who came on 800 boats and Labor had completely lost control of our borders. What was demonstrated at the last election was that Labor had not learnt one lesson, because we know that there are many Labor members who have come into the parliament who are still advocating against the position adopted consistently by this government over the course of the last few years. We will not deviate, because the people smugglers are still there—still there in Indonesia, still there in Sri Lanka, still there in Vietnam and elsewhere—trying to put syndicates together to put people on to boats. One thing that we know is that they could not care less whether those people make land or whether they go to the bottom of the ocean. Mr Shorten went to the last election saying—

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