Luke Howarth (Petrie, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection. Will the minister please inform the House of actions the government is taking to protect our borders?

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

I thank the member for Petrie, who is in this place for many reasons. He is a fine local member, but another reason he is here is that he is part of a party and a coalition that went to the last election and made a commitment that they would stop the boats. That is what we are doing. That is why he, like all members on this side, can look their constituents in the eye and say that we are doing what we said we would do and we are getting the results we said we would get. They know two things: they know that Labor started the boats and they know that the coalition is stopping the boats. That is what our constituents know.

Border protection, as we on this side of the House all know, is not just about stopping the boats. Border protection goes right across the field of threats and issues that need to be countered and addressed at our borders. This government is doing everything within its means to address the many threats to our interests and to enforce our laws as they apply to the border. Our border agencies are on high alert, as the Prime Minister has said, to address the very serious threat of returning jihadists to Australia. For some months now we have been—

Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Speaker—

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

You're kidding!

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

On a point of order I call the member for Corio, and he just should not repeat questions.

Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Speaker, this is on relevance. We can hardly trust—

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

This is not—

Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

this minister stopping them from coming in.

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

Resume your seat!

Mr Marles interjecting—

The member will remove himself under standing order 94(a) for the same reason as the member for Jagajaga. The standing orders will not be abused in that way.

The member for Corio then left the chamber.

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

Only those opposite would think that trying to stop jihadists from entering Australia had nothing to do with the question about how we need to protect our borders. That explains a lot about where those opposite sit on these issues.

We are taking steps. There are 10 national security alerts that we have every single day and 30 million passengers have come through our airports—going out or coming in—over the course of this year. So being on high alert is where our border agencies are. It has been a difficult job for them because the previous government ripped more than $700 million out of the Australian Customs and Border Protection Force. We have reinvested in this budget over $700 million into the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service and in the establishment of the Australian Border Service. We have also invested $88 million in advance screening, which was announced by the coalition in opposition. We are enforcing our laws. We have already cancelled or rejected over 100 visas on the basis of character grounds and that ranges from criminality to even more serious threats to that. In addition, there has been a 20 per cent increase in field actions on illegal workers that has resulted in a more than 12 per cent increase in the location of illegal workers. There has been a more than 18 per cent increase in amphetamine type substance detections at our ports.

They are the results you get when you take border protection seriously, when you invest in it and when you back the people who are tasked to do these jobs. So we are stopping the boats, but we are going to stop a lot more than that.