Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question, and we all regret the death of the person detained in PNG. The position is very straightforward. We stand for the integrity of Australia's borders. We are not going to do what the Labor Party did with the support of the Greens—and would do again—which is to outsource our borders to people smugglers. We know what that looks like. There is a very straightforward analysis of this. We do not have to theorise. We do not have to speculate. This is not a subject for academic dissertation. We know that, right here in this place, Kevin Rudd defended weakening John Howard's border policies. It did not matter what our policies were, he believed it was just for push-back. That was his theory. Well, he had the opportunity to test it out: at least 1,200 people died at sea and there were 50,000 unauthorised arrivals.

We are not going to outsource our borders to people smugglers ever again. We will defend the integrity of our borders. The confidence of the Australian people that their government alone determines who comes into Australia enables us to have a generous humanitarian program—one of the most generous in the world—and is the foundation of our multicultural society. Strong borders means a strong society. That is what we stand for. We know what Labor and the Greens stand for. They stand for outsourcing our border protection to criminals and people smugglers.

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