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

I thank the honourable member for his question, and I want to thank all of my colleagues for the work they've done in supporting the government's position to keep our borders secure because, if you don't have secure borders, you cannot have a safe society.

I want to make sure that we don't see children drowning at sea. We saw, tragically, 1,200 people drown at sea when Labor was last in government. We saw 8,000 children go into detention and 17 new detention centres open when Labor was in government, because 50,000 people arrived on 800 boats. I'm pleased to inform the House that yesterday a further 19 people who Labor put onto Nauru left Nauru for the United States, bringing the total number of people lifted from Nauru and Manus Island to 286. It's important to recognise that all of the people that Labor put onto Manus and Nauru—we want to make sure that we can get them off as quickly as possible.

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