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

My question is to be Minister for Immigration and Border Protection. Will the minister please inform the House of the importance of Australia's strong and consistent border protection policies?

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

I thank the member most sincerely for his question. He is very passionate about making sure that we can keep our borders secure so that we can keep our communities as safe as possible. I am very proud that it is now been over 800 days since we have had a successful people smuggling venture to our country. The irony is that on Labor's watch when they were in government there were 800 boats, with 50,000 people and 1,200 people tragically drowned at sea. They had an $11 billion blowout and they completely lost control of our borders. Australians voted for this government because they knew that we could get this situation back under control, and back under control it is.

But people who believe that the threat has disappeared or gone away need to look no further than Indonesia, where 14,000 people are prepared to hop on boats tomorrow. You need to look no further than what is happening in Europe and on the Mediterranean right now to understand that people smugglers have not gone away at all.

The Labor Party is as divided today as they were in the Rudd and Gillard years and as divided as they were during the election campaign, when the Leader of the Opposition tried to pretend to the Australian public that somehow Labor had got their act together on border protection. But they have not. The new shadow minister, the member for Oxley, has come up with a new holding line, but you will not find it on his website, because this train wreck interview was removed from his website. It was an interview with Laura Jayes from Sky News and I will just read a little bit to the House, because this new holding line is a pretty impressive one. Laura Jayes said, 'The coalition government has had to deal with a case load of 30,000 people that came under Labor. I think it is a fact that is indisputable. It has been found, according to the immigration minister, that 10,000 of those are economic refugees, so they have temporary protection visas at the moment.' Bearing in mind, there are three things that have worked here in keeping the people smugglers at bay. One is turning back boats, where it is safe to do so. Second is regional processing centres. Third is temporary protection visas, and Labor proposed to abandon temporary protection visas.

Mr Neumann goes on to say, 'What we would do is of course have these people assessed—'. And then Laura Jayes interrupts this nonsense and says, 'But why do you need to reassess them if the department has already assess them as economic refugees?' Mr Neumann says, 'I would be briefed by the department straight away. We want to end temporary protection visas.' Laura Jayes says, 'So the 10,000—and I know you have not been briefed—you would give them permanent status in Australia?' Mr Neumann, the shadow minister, says, 'I would be asking the department for a briefing in relation to it. As a policy we are opposed to temporary protection visas.' Laura Jayes goes on to say, 'If they are assessed as economic refugees what would you do with them then? Permanent arrangements?' Mr Neumann says very decisively, 'I would be asking the department for a briefing.' Now, he goes on with that nonsense line for three or four further occasions. It demonstrates that Labor remains bitterly divided on border protection policy. (Time expired)