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

I thank the honourable member for her question. It is a particularly import question, because, as we all know, people smugglers have not gone out of business. Right now, people smugglers are trying to get people to pay money to hop onto boats. Tragically, we know the outcome if we lose control of our borders, because it was evidenced over the six years of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years, when the Leader of the Opposition was a senior member within that cabinet. There were 1,200 people, including women and children, who drowned at sea. There were thousands and thousands of children put into detention. It was the case that 50,000 people arrived on 800 boats, and we are still cleaning up Labor's mess.

Having got the children out of detention, having closed the 17 detention centres, having not had a successful people smuggling venture arrive in over 800 days now, and having fixed up this mess and this sad chapter in Labor history—

See this speech in context