Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection. Will the minister explain how the government is keeping its commitment to deny permanent visas for people who have arrived illegally in Australia by boat, and are there any challenges to the government fulfilling that promise?

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Pearce for his question. He has a keen interest in these issues, particularly in managing issues around the Northam centre. A commitment was made by the coalition before the last election, and that commitment is being honoured. It is being honoured despite the frustration of those opposite, because what we are doing is cleaning up the mess on our borders that was left by those opposite.

The key contributors to that mess I still see sitting on the frontbench of the opposition. I still see them there. We have got the member for Gorton, who was responsible for 12,500 arrivals. We have the member for Watson, the Manager of Opposition Business. He was only there for two months, but he was responsible for almost 5,500 arrivals. Of course, the daddy of them all was the member for McMahon. The member for McMahon, who wanted to come to the dispatch box and remind us all about records in this very question time, was responsible for 25,000 arrivals in 400 boats. It was the member for McMahon who left me the boats and it was the member for McMahon as Treasurer who has left this Treasurer the budget with a deficit of over $120 billion. If there is a gold medal for ministerial failure—in multiple portfolios, as we know—it is the member for McMahon, particularly so in immigration.

This government is going to continue with the policies that are working, despite the opposition that continues to come from those opposite. That opposition extends to them continuing to try and deny this government the reintroduction of temporary protection visas, which has been core coalition policy for over a decade and is part of a suite of measures that we know stops the boats. We took it to the election, we had the mandate of the Australian people and they have sought to deny and frustrate that in the Senate by teaming up with their partners in crime, the Greens, when it comes to border protection policy failure.

We know what happened when they got rid of temporary protection visas when they were in government. We know that 800 boats turned up, we know that 1,100 people perished at sea, we know that there were 8,000 children who turned up on boats after they got rid of temporary protection visas and we know that they handed out 15,000 permanent visas to people who turned up illegally by boat. They think the best message to send to people to not come to Australia is to give 30,000 permanent visas to people who arrived illegally on boats on their watch. This government does not agree with that. This government is going to honour its commitments that are stopping the boats and implement the measures that they did not have the strength to implement.

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.