Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to Prime Minister about yesterday's High Court decision. The government wants to send children to Nauru, Labor wants to send them to a third country, the Greens want to let them stay. Prime Minister, this is your first big moral test. Do you really believe that child abuse is somehow necessary to stop people dying at sea? Will you promise that no children, including the 37 babies born here and the kids currently in Australian schools, will be deported to Nauru?

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Melbourne for his question. The member for Melbourne's party, from time to time, tries to create the impression that it has a monopoly on empathy and a monopoly on morality. It does not. If the government were to follow the policies advocated by the Greens in this regard, the consequence would not simply be tens of thousands of unauthorised arrivals coming to Australia, it would be thousands of deaths at sea.

The policies that the honourable member's party was so supportive of under the previous Labor government resulted in precisely that, a complete collapse of security at the border, deaths at sea, well over 1,000 deaths at sea. They are the ones we know about. We do not know how many. So the honourable member can share his empathy with us, he can share all of that, but he has to recognise that the approach his party has advocated, which was in large part taken up by the previous Labor government, resulted in deaths at sea—women and children, young men, families. That is the consequence of abandoning responsibility at the border.

Let me say to the honourable member: one child in detention is one child too many. Every single one of us is anguished by the prospect, by the reality, of children in detention. The fact is that when our side, the coalition, lost office in 2007 and John Howard's prime ministership came to an end there was not one single child in detention. Within five years—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Prime Minister will resume his seat. The member for Melbourne on a point of order.

Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. There are 46 seconds left and I ask the Prime Minister when the kids are going to be taken—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Prime Minister is completely in order. The member for Melbourne will resume his seat.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Within five years the number had reached 2,000. Since coming back into office the coalition government have stopped the boats and we have reduced the number of children in detention to fewer than 100. Our goal is to reduce that to zero. But the key element in doing so is to ensure that people do not get on people-smugglers' boats and put their lives at risk.

Mr Ewen Jones interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Herbert is warned.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The honourable member has to recognise his responsibility to support our collective effort of the policy, which has broader support across the community, in keeping our borders secure and keeping women and children safe on the seas by ensuring they do not get on leaky boats and that they do not drown at sea. That is what we are achieving.