Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Home Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I'm actually quite touched, I've got to say. He doesn't get much of a chance to ask a question. He doesn't ask questions very regularly in this place—and you can see why! So let me come to it: the department—

Ms Plibersek interjecting—

Oh, scream and yell all you like. It won't make any difference. You're hopeless on border protection as well. The reality is that the federal government contracts the companies. There are federal procurement rules in relation to contracts. The department, not the ministers, deal with procurement, and if there are issues then the department—the secretary of my department—will deal with those issues.

But I can tell you what this contract is about. It's about delivering security services. Why would you need services of this nature—on Manus Island or Nauru, for example? You'd need them because the Labor Party brought 50,000 people on 80 boats. Tragically, 1,200 didn't make it. As we know, they drowned at sea. But many people made it, and when Mr Rudd set up the arrangement with the PNG government to open Manus and to put women and kids and people onto Manus Island, it meant that the government in very quick fashion had to put up tents, had to have people living in dreadful conditions, had to contract very quickly—a horrible situation, and we're seeing it potentially unfold again if this Leader of the Opposition wins the election in May. That's the reality.

Labor has been a disaster on border protection. They spent $16 billion—money that could have been spent on hospitals here, could have been spent on roads here, could have been spent on all sorts of government expenditure, such as listing medicines on the PBS. Don't forget, Labor ran out of money and they couldn't list drugs anymore, when they were last in government. So imagine asking a question about why we're spending money on the detention network. We're still cleaning up your mess! That's the problem. We don't clean up Labor's messes overnight. This has taken years. And we've got to a position where we have closed 19 detention centres. We've got to a position where we've got the 8,000 kids that Labor put into detention out of detention, yet we're facing the prospect this week in parliament where Labor wants to undo all of that, to bring people of questionable character to our country, to bring people to our country, which will send a message to people smugglers that they are back in business. Why would the Labor Party do that? Why would they risk billions of dollars and lives again? Why would the Labor Party do that? Because this Leader of the Opposition is weaker than Rudd and Gillard combined.

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