Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection. Will the minister update the House on how many weeks have passed since the last successful people-smuggling venture made it to Australia? Will the minister advise on the key factors responsible for this outcome?

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

I thank the member for Swan for his question and his keen interest in this issue. I said once before in this place that I would not be running a shipping news service for people smugglers. But there is no shipping news to give, because for the past 10 weeks—for the last 70 days—there has not been a single successful people-smuggling venture to Australia. I note that 70 days was the amount of time the Manager of Opposition Business served as Minister for Immigration up until the election—70 days. In the last 70 days we have not had a successful people-smuggling venture come to Australia.

I am asked about the key factors that have produced this outcome. I would suggest the following. Firstly, there are the people in the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service, our Navy, our Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Department of Immigration and Border Protection. These are the people who go out there every day and implement good policy. That is what they do. They are doing a sterling job despite what Senator Conroy might say or others might choose to reflect on in other places. They are doing an outstanding job.

The other thing that has been a key factor in the success has been the policies themselves. One thing that those opposite do not seem to understand is that we have the same people that they had to do the job, we are faced with the same challenges that they were faced with to do the job and the problem was as great; the circumstances were different. But there is one thing that is very different, and that is that the policies are different. The policies that those people are putting in place are different. The most significant one that has had the impact on the success over the last 70 days has been our operations at sea. Operations, which—

Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Which you aren't telling us about.

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

I will be specific, for the member for Isaacs: denying illegal entry of vessels into our waters and removing them from those waters. That is our policy, and that is exactly what we are doing—

Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Own up and tell us what you're doing!

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

You said—through you, Madam Speaker—all of them said, that it could not be done! It could never be done! They came up with excuse after excuse after excuse for why it could not be done, and the boats just turned up, didn't they—day after day after day? The third ingredient was the result of a government which believed in policies that would work and wanted to address the problem.

So it has been the people, it has been the policies under this government and it has been the resolve of a government which believes in the policies we are implementing that mean we and can give those good people—whether they are in our Navy or our Customs and Border Protection—the support they need to get the job done. And 70 days, and counting, on, they are getting that job done.