Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Justice and Customs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister confirm that the government has wasted $4 million on a combating people-smuggling communications campaign, when clearly the message that people smugglers are hearing from these weakened border policies is: where the bloody hell are you?

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question. Presumably he would be referring also to the 5,800 who arrived here as asylum seekers in 2002, the 4,400 who arrived here in 2003 and the 3,200 who arrived here in 2004 et cetera. Can I say also to those opposite in response to the question concerning people-smuggling activities that in Indonesia—and we were pleased, I believe, in this parliament to welcome the President of the Indonesian Republic last week—the total number of disruptions undertaken by our partners since September 2008 is 107. That involved—how many people?—2,828 people and 54 separate arrests. In Malaysia, there were 21 disruptions involving 645 people, and, in Sri Lanka, there were 14 disruptions involving 270 people and 63 arrests. So I would say to the honourable member in response to his question that these are the concrete actions the government is undertaking in its activities in partnership with our regional partners in South-East Asia. It is the practical work which the previous government sought to do from time to time. We will take appropriate national actions, regional actions and international actions to deal with a problem which is being confronted by many countries around the world at present.