Karen Andrews (McPherson, Liberal Party, Minister for Home Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Speaker, and I thank the member for her question. While the situation in Afghanistan remains unpredictable and dangerous, our work continues. It's not just in Kabul; it remains an around-the-clock effort here in Australia to support all of those people who are working day and night to assist with the evacuation of people from Afghanistan.

Overnight, we have airlifted about 1,200 people from Kabul, bringing to about 4,000 the number of people we have assisted to evacuate from Kabul. This has been, without a doubt, the largest humanitarian airlift operation in our history. It is an urgent and a dangerous mission, and it's one that has been conducted and that is being carried out under the most challenging of circumstances. I do want to thank those people who have worked so hard in such challenging circumstances to do all that they can to bring people out of a most desperate situation.

The government is doing everything it can to remain focused on facilitating further departures from Afghanistan of people who wish to leave, including under our humanitarian program. We have already allocated 3,000 places to Afghan nationals to come here under our humanitarian program. That is a floor, not a ceiling. We will be doing everything we can to support minorities; to support women and children; to support those people who have links to Australia; and to support those people who have shown a commitment to Australia. Those people can be assured that we are doing absolutely every single thing that we can do to support them.

Of course, let me say this: the integrity of our migration process and our borders is absolutely essential for community safety and confidence. Our Australian Border Force officials have been working very hard on the ground, conducting the security checks that are needed. Those checks are being undertaken because we have a responsibility, as a government, to make sure that we are keeping Australians safe and secure. And we will continue to make sure that all the appropriate checks are conducted on all of these people we are bringing here, to support Australia.

I think that it's fair to say this government has demonstrated over many, many years how seriously we take border security, and I do thank all of the people who have supported the government and who continue to work to make sure that we keep our borders safe and secure.

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