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

I thank the honourable member for his question and acknowledge his service to his country and now, of course, to the people in his electorate. He is a very hardworking local member. We know that in Townsville, like across the rest of the country, people want to make sure we have control of our borders—and that has not always been the case, of course. We know that, not so many years ago, the Labor Party, when in power, had 50,000 people arrive on 800 boats, and, tragically, 1,200 people drowned at sea.

In addition to that, we know that the bill now racked up as a result of Labor's complete and utter destruction of our border protection policies in this country has gone up to $16 billion. So 1,200 people drowned at sea—a humanitarian disaster—with a $16 billion cost to the budget. That is money that we could be spending on hospitals, on education, on roads or on whatever the Commonwealth funds otherwise. In addition to that, they put people on Manus and Nauru in record numbers and 8,000 children in detention. We have sought to clean all of that mess up.

I can inform the House today that we are in a very good position because of the deal we did with the United States. We've got over 630 people off to the United States. But importantly—this is a very important point—we've got the number of people Labor put on Manus Island down to four. We will get to that zero within coming weeks, because the last four will transfer to Port Moresby. We have completely closed down the regional processing centre on Manus Island, and we have done that because we don't have new boat arrivals.

I'm asked about what the alternative policy would be. You would have thought, given that Labor presided over a system of 8,000 children in detention, all of those people drowning, all of the detention centres that they had to open to cope with the complete disaster they presided over, that they wouldn't repeat those mistakes again—but they would. You see, the shadow minister is presiding over a policy disaster again. She has no idea what she is doing in relation to medevac laws, in relation to border protection laws, in relation to national security laws. They would all be watered down on her watch.

The Labor Party continue to eat themselves alive not just in relation to climate change policy, not just in relation to economic policy, but in relation to border protection policy as well. All of this is happening on the watch of the Leader of the Opposition, who has been the chief cheerleader of weak border protection policy. He stood up at conference after conference and sought to water down Labor's border protection policy. He has learnt nothing in his years in this place, and Labor can never be trusted on border protection. (Time expired)

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