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

I thank the honourable member very much for his question. As the Australian public knows, it's taken us a number of years, but we have tried our best to clean up Labor's mess in the border protection area. They allowed 50,000 people in on 800 boats and, tragically, 1,200 people drowned at sea. It's interesting to have a look at who the architect was behind the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years disaster on border protection policy. Everyone in this House knows and the Australian public needs to know that the man who wants to be the Treasurer in a Shorten government if Mr Shorten is to be elected leader at the next election is the person who was immigration minister, as it turned out, in the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years, and under the member for McMahon's reign we know that 25,000 people arrived on 400 boats. He's the man who wants to be the next Treasurer. He's designed this tax that we've just seen go down in a heap in the last 24 hours where he proposed to whack a tax on 300,000 pensioners, and who would have believed he presided over another mess? This guy, the member for McMahon—it's interesting to have a look at his background, because he was also a treasurer in the glorious periods of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years. He was one of Australia's worst treasurers. It was one of Australia's worst periods in government in this country. And do you know? It was a glorious reign—a short reign but glorious nonetheless! He believes that he is the next Paul Keating. Is that a Zegna suit you're wearing? It is not an expensive suit.

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