Michelle Landry (Capricornia, National 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 the government's progress in keeping its promise to stop the boats? Are there any alternative approaches?

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

I thank the member for Capricornia for her question.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The minister will resume his seat. If the member for Grayndler is calling a point of order merely to disrupt business, that is against the standing orders, and he will be sat down and asked to leave the chamber. What is the standing order?

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Speaker, the standing order is very clear and has decades of precedence in this place, which is that you cannot ask a question asking for alternatives. That word has very specifically been ruled out of order by every Speaker in this chamber in the last 18 years.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am sorry, it has not. There is no point of order. I call the minister.

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

I am happy to update the House on the government's progress in keeping its commitments, because that is what this government does: it keeps its commitments. What it says before the election, it does after the election. But today—

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Speaker, I raise a point of order.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is getting close to simply disrupting the proceedings of the House.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I refer to page 555 of Practice:

The Speaker has been critical of the use of phrases at the end of questions, such as ‘are there any threats to…’, that could be viewed as intended to allow Ministers to canvass opposition plans or policies.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think if you look at the precedent you will find that I have used the same point of order and it got the same response: there is no point of order.

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

I can understand why the Manager of Opposition Business would be so reluctant to hear the answer to this question, because when he was minister for immigration his record for boats turning up in Australia is that he could not get past six days. Six days was the longest period of time when he was the minister that we went without a boat turning up.

I am going to refer to the Human Rights Commissioner, Gillian Triggs, and this is what she had to say today: 'There is an objective fact here that by using border patrols, by using Customs officers and military officers, we have physically stopped the boats.' That is what she says. She goes on: 'One has to accept the physical fact that the boats have been stopped from landing on Christmas Island or being brought to Christmas Island. I think we also in fairness have to accept that it is very likely that many lives have been saved at sea.' So, that is clear.

I can update the House that it is 95 days since our last successful people-smuggling venture. During the same 95 days last year, there were 55 boats and 3,116 people who turned up. The people, the policies and the resolve are what is producing these results. It is a position of conviction, not convenience, that drives the policies and those on this side of the House. As for those on the other side of the House, well their heart was just never in it when they were in government, and it seems that nothing has changed. I read—

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

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. In order to be directly relevant to the question, the minister has got to actually speak about the government's administration of the policy and not descend into this abuse of the opposition.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is no point of order. The minister has the call.

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

Senator Dastyari has given a speech on the weekend and he has referred to the double-mindedness of those opposite when he said:

Labor is and continues to need to be prepared to have an open debate about the future of our migration policies. The fact is, over the past few years we have tossed and turned on these issues.

In order to have successful border protection policies, you have to be consistent, you have to have unity. The only person on that side of the House who has been consistent in their policies on border protection is the member for Chisholm. The only problem is that the member for Chisholm's policies are against those currently articulated by the Leader of the Opposition and those opposite. At least there is one member opposite who is prepared to be consistent. For the rest of them it is a cavalcade of every position you could possibly imagine under the sun, except for the ones that actually worked. We know that even now Senator Dastyari is saying that he is uncomfortable with the opposition's current position on offshore processing, so the question for the Leader of the Opposition is: what are their policies when it comes to border protection? That is what people in Western Australia will be asking. They know what our policies are. Does the opposition leader support the policy that is working, which is turning boats back where it is safe to do so?