Sarah Henderson (Corangamite, 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 action the government is taking to keep the community safe at our borders?

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for her question and thank her very much for being such a strong voice in this place when it comes to issues of national security. As the Prime Minister has pointed out earlier in question time today, this government-any Australian government—has no higher responsibility than keeping our people safe and secure. Our frontline staff at the airports, our Federal Police—all of our intelligence agency staff—need support in this fight, because we face an unprecedented threat from terrorism. When Labor were in government, when the Leader of the Opposition was in cabinet, they ripped out $700 million from Customs and Border Protection services. That is $700 million that the Labor Party took away from our frontline staff in their fight against terrorism. It was a disgraceful action from a hopeless and incompetent government. What have we done over the last 18 months or so? We have restored much of that funding, because we want to give every possible tool and capacity to those frontline officers to make sure that they can keep our country safe and secure.

We have provided additional money, which has meant that Labor's cuts, which resulted in a 25 per cent cut in the screening of sea cargo and a 75 per cent cut in the screening of air cargo, are a thing of the past. That is what happened under Labor. We have been able to restore funding to make sure that that screening can take place so that we can keep our borders secure.

In addition to that, we have been able to put in $88 million to support counterterrorism unit officers at our eight international airports, which is something that could not be contemplated by Labor because they took money away from those frontline services. At a time when the threat to our country from terrorism is at its greatest, these officers have swung into action. They have already offloaded passengers from flights. Indeed, 288 passengers have been offloaded from flights after the CTU officers at our international airports intervened. They have conducted 108,000 real-time assessments of people who were catching flights. They are the ones who deserve the support of our government, and they get it from this side of politics.

Those people who are standing up to terrorism at the borders, at the airports, at the ports, deserve the support of a grateful nation and, unfortunately, when Labor was in power, they had money ripped out of their pockets and it was a disgrace. The fact is that we will provide support to these officers because they are stopping people going to the Middle East to fight, they are stopping them when they get back to this country, and this government will absolutely stand up with those officers to keep the Australian public safe.

Mr Watts interjecting—

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

The member for Gellibrand: I will apply exactly the same test as I did to the member for Solomon, he will withdraw.

Tim Watts (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw that I called him a liar.

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

You, also, will be warned. As I said, I will place you on exactly the same footing.