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

I want firstly to respond to the honourable member for Swan and thank him for his contribution. As he pointed out, we had a very successful visit to his electorate, meeting with some wonderful community leaders there. There was a lot to discuss, and I think they would have been very pleased with some of the announcements that we have made in this budget. The honourable member for Swan should be commended not only for his work within his electorate and the way in which he engages with his constituents to the great betterment of his community but also for the work that he does here as chair of our backbench committee in this space. He is professional in his dealings, he has a compassionate approach to cases that are brought to him as the local member for Swan, and he is to be commended for all of that work.

The member for Swan's most substantive contribution, of course, was pointing out Labor's failing in relation to their loss of control of our borders and the consequences of that. I do not think many Australians fully understand the extent to which this problem has cost us in other areas of government expenditure. So far, we have spent $13.7 billion on cleaning up Labor's mess. That is a lot of money that we could spend on schools, on roads such as the Bruce Highway, as the member for Fisher points out, on helping older Australians who are struggling with energy prices—there are all sorts of things we could do. The trouble is that it has not stopped there. This problem, this mess that we are still cleaning up, is costing $1.9 billion a year. Despite all of that, the Labor Party are still at war with themselves on border protection. They still cannot bring themselves to support the government's position. They pretended at the last election that somehow there was a dodgy bandaid solution, a bipartisan approach to this issue, because they did not want to talk about it. That has not been the case since the election, and I can assure you, Madam Deputy Speaker, that in the run-up to the next election we will be reminding many Australians about that.

Could I cover off on a couple of issues the honourable member for Blair raised, firstly in relation to the fast boats. I have expressed my disappointment to the commissioner. I want those boats to be delivered because they will be an important asset for us. The commissioner has answered questions in Senate estimates only in the last week in relation to some of the further detail. There are delays, which, on the advice given to me, have been unavoidable, but I have been very specific in my advice to the department that I want the boats delivered as quickly as possible. There is a lot of work that we are doing in the Torres Strait, in the north, in particular around illegal fishing, and from both the commissioner's perspective and the whole organisation's perspective there is a desire to do even more, and we will continue to do that.

I want to thank very much the member for Dunkley, who I think has made a wonderful contribution in his short time in this parliament. He really has taken a great interest in these matters and is secretary of our backbench committee. He is a champion of the government's policies and the many successes we have been able to achieve in this portfolio, and I commend him for the work that he has done. He asked specifically about the intake of 12,000 Syrians. I can confirm that visas have now been granted for all 12,000 additional places for people displaced by the conflict in Syria and Iraq. I am advised that, as at 19 May, 11,714 people from this group have arrived in Australia. Again, there has been incredible work done by our officers here in Canberra and, most importantly, in the posts in the Middle East.

It is an amazing story that the member for Dunkley referred to: the Yazidis. We visited one of their communities, in Wagga, only a few weeks ago. These are the people we are helping and that all Australians should be proud of. I know the member for Dunkley is proud of the work we are doing in providing support to people who otherwise, in many cases, would have faced certain death. They were being slaughtered by Isis, and we have recovered the lives of these people. We have allowed them to create a new start in our country, in Melbourne. Certainly the electorate of Dunkley is one of the multicultural capitals of our country, and we are very proud of the support that the member for Dunkley provides to his constituents. I really commend him for the work that he has done.

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