Kevin Hogan (Page, 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 success of the government's turn-back policy in halting the people smuggling trade and stopping deaths at sea?

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

I thank the member for his question. I thank him sincerely for his interest in making sure that he can support this government to secure our borders, which is exactly what this government is doing. When the Rudd government was elected in 2007, they inherited from the Howard government four people in detention, including no children. After Labor was elected, after only a matter of a few years and under the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years, they had 1,992 children in detention. Today, because of the successes of our policies, we have been able to get that number down much closer to 100. We have been able to stop the boats flowing across the seas. As the Minister for Foreign Affairs pointed out earlier, some 52,000 people came on 800 boats during Labor's watch. Not only did it result in an $11 billion blowout under the budget but it also tragically resulted in the deaths of 1,200 people at sea.

We have not had a successful people smuggling venture in over 300 days. At the heart of our success and at the heart of the success of Operation Sovereign Borders—and the Australian public get this—is the fact that we have been able to turn around boats when it is safe to do so. I am interested to see that the Labor Party still continues to tie itself in knots over this very important issue. They cannot yet decide whether or not they will Support Operation Sovereign Borders. They cannot yet decide whether or not they will support turn backs where it is safe to do so.

I am running a bit of a book on where it is the frontbench might be on this very important issue. Let us have a look at the Labor frontbench. The member for Greenway—she is against turn-backs. The member for Brand—he is for a turn-backs policy. The member for Blaxland—we saw on the weekend he is for a turn-backs policy. El Presidente of the Labor Party there, the member for Port Adelaide—he is against turn-backs. Mr Marles, my opposite, is for the turn-backs policy. The shadow Treasurer is against. The member for Sydney is against. The member for Watson is against turn-backs. The member for Isaacs is absolutely, adamantly against. The member from Jagajaga is against. The member for Grayndler advised on the weekend that he is against turn-backs, and the member for Gorton is against. That means that the tally so far, in the run-up to the national party conference, is 9-3. But there is an important one who has gone missing in action already—and it is true to say that, when it comes to Operation Sovereign Borders and having the guts to stop the boats, this Leader of the Opposition is missing in action. He is absolutely missing in action. What the Australian people voted this government in for at the last election was the commitment that we gave to them that we would stop the boats—and stop the boats we have. But let me assure the Australian public: if this opposition leader is elected to government at the next election, the boats and the deaths at sea will start again.