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

I want to thank the member for Boothby for her question and, most importantly, for the work that she does in her electorate. She is very conscious, as all of us are, of ensuring that we protect children in our local communities. The government has made a very significant investment into the public policy space, into the police and into the work that's done by the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission and other agencies, to keep kids safe in this country, and, in particular, to try to keep them safe online. We have been able to do that, to invest $70 million in the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation, because we have managed the budget well. This is an investment that, when the Labor Party was in power, they weren't able to make because they ran out of money. They stopped listing medicines and they took money out of our policing, law enforcement and intelligence agencies. That's what happened when they mismanaged the budget.

We've been able to manage the budget effectively over the last number of years. We have done that through a number of tough decisions, but we now pay a dividend back to the Australian community, and there is no more important priority than protecting Australian children.

In 2014, we strengthened the Migration Act. It was opposed by the Labor Party, to their shame. We have sought to make sure that we strengthen our laws so that we can cancel the visas of noncitizens—now 420 of them—for child exploitation and child sex offences. And we're proposing to strengthen the law further, which is opposed again by Labor. That's the reality. I point this out because there is a big difference between the Labor Party and the coalition when it comes to these very important issues.

Dr Freelander interjecting—

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