Nicolle Flint (Boothby, 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 the important role Border Protection plays in securing our great nation? Why is it important to always put our national interest first?

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

I thank the honourable member very much for her question. She is a very accomplished person and will make a great contribution in this parliament.

Obviously, we are all working closely with our intelligence and law enforcement agencies, and that is certainly the case for Border Force. We have CTU officers at our eight international airports—in fact, 100 officers now. The threat is real, and government and opposition—every member, particularly senior members—need to act in our nation's best interests. It is inconceivable that any person in this place could fall under the spell of any foreign national.

It is funny, because during the break I watched a great TV miniseries by Chris Uhlmann and Steve Lewis called Secret City. It was a six-episode series. It was filmed in this very building, as it turns out, and it was based around a character called Mal Paxton. He was a defence minister in a Labor government. He was very familiar. He had close contact with a foreign national and was influenced by this foreign national, perhaps even to the extent of accepting financial payments. He even changed his position on national security policy, as I recall. It was a great watch, and congratulations to Chris Uhlmann and to Steve Lewis!

I thought it was a fictional plot. I thought it went a bit far. But it turns out that it may have been a documentary, because imagine my surprise when I read that Senator Sam Dastyari had received a payment from a third party and had changed his view, and expressed a different view from that of his own party, on national security policy.

Ironically, the first episode within this six-episode series by Mr Uhlmann and Mr Lewis was called 'A donation to the struggle'. Another episode was called 'Ghosts in the machine'. But my favourite episode was 'Falling hard', and if this Leader of the Opposition has any leadership skill at all then that is exactly what will happen to Senator Sam Dastyari.

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

The Manager of Opposition Business on a point of order?

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

I seek leave to table photographs of Senator Brandis with the same person, of the Prime Minister with the same person, or a list of political donations to the Liberal Party—any one of the three will do.

Leave not granted.