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

I thank the member for Petrie for his question. He's a tireless worker on the Redcliffe Peninsula in working with the police and all the agencies there to keep his local constituents safe, and he's a very strong supporter of border protection policies which have seen this government secure our borders and keep our community safer than it otherwise would have been.

The last time the Labor government changed the policies which have stopped the boats was back in 2007, under Kevin Rudd—when the Leader of the Opposition was a key member and a key confidante of then Prime Minister Rudd, it's easy to note, and I think important to note. When Mr Howard left office four people were, tragically, in detention. None of them were children. But the fact is that Labor dismantled the Howard government policies and 50,000 people came on 800 boats. We have got out of detention the 8,000 children whom Labor put into detention. We've closed the 17 detention centres that Labor opened. We've not had a death at sea, whereas Labor had 1,200 deaths at sea. So why would the Labor Party now be proposing to dismantle our policies which have secured our borders? This is an important question to ask, and it's clear that the members of the left wing of the Labor Party have completely monstered the Leader of the Opposition. The fact is that the Labor Party is in the process of dismantling their policy, which they have claimed up until this stage would be the same as our policy.

For example, Kristina Keneally wants to come into this place as one of the lead advocates to undo our border protection policies. She needs to be called out, because I believe that the people of Bennelong support the government's policies, which have secured our borders and stopped the deaths at sea, and I think they strongly support our policies. But have a look at what Kristina Keneally had to say in 2012, when 17,000 people arrived on boats. Kristina Keneally tweeted, 'Australia is big enough and generous enough for onshore processing and for increasing its intake of refugees.' She went on to say, 'But the number of boat arrivals in Australia actually just fluctuates with worldwide trends.' That is a dangerous point of view. It was dangerous in 2012 and it's dangerous now, because the people smugglers are biting at the bit to get back into business. Anyone who thinks people smugglers have gone away—that somehow the boats have stopped permanently—has no understanding of the basics of the threat we are facing. The reality is that Kristina Keneally was the choice of Eddie Obeid and Joe Tripodi for premier in New South Wales. She's the opposition leader's pick for Bennelong. She's a great friend of Sam Dastyari, who shouldn't be in this parliament—

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