Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection. Will the minister update the house on steps the government has taken to secure our borders and achieve third-country resettlement pathways? Is the minister aware of any alternative approach?

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. It is a particularly import question, because, as we all know, people smugglers have not gone out of business. Right now, people smugglers are trying to get people to pay money to hop onto boats. Tragically, we know the outcome if we lose control of our borders, because it was evidenced over the six years of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years, when the Leader of the Opposition was a senior member within that cabinet. There were 1,200 people, including women and children, who drowned at sea. There were thousands and thousands of children put into detention. It was the case that 50,000 people arrived on 800 boats, and we are still cleaning up Labor's mess.

Having got the children out of detention, having closed the 17 detention centres, having not had a successful people smuggling venture arrive in over 800 days now, and having fixed up this mess and this sad chapter in Labor history—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

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

Member for Wakefield, this is your final warning.

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

our determination is to get women and children and all those people on Nauru and Manus off those two islands, but to do it in such a way that we do not recommence boat arrivals. I do not want new arrivals to fill the vacancies we create, which is the policy prescription that Labor is putting forward. We have had Homeland Security and State Department representatives from the United States in Australia over the course of the last week or so talking through with officials from my department ways in which we can screen people very quickly and facilitate their removal. I do not want the people smugglers to hear the weak message being conveyed by the Leader of the Opposition, as we have seen over the course of the last couple of weeks.

The Leader of the Opposition is intent on creating whatever distraction he can. But the reality remains that this Leader of the Opposition presides over a weak and divided party. They were weak and divided when they were in government and they are weak and divided now. The people smugglers saw a weak leader in Kevin Rudd, they saw a weak leader in Julia Gillard and they know this Leader of the Opposition is at least as weak as they are.

I see notification today that the policy unit of the Labor Party has been taken over by the left of this party. That is a terrible development, because the people smugglers were rubbing their hands together when Labor was last in power, because the fact is that the left of the party completely dominate this border protection policy. That is why 26 people in the Labor Party came out against the legislation the government has passed through the Lower House. At every opportunity, this Leader of the Opposition shows that he is unfit to be Prime Minister of this country and, if he were to be elected at the next election, as sure as night follows day, the boats would restart.

Opposition members interjecting—

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

The members on my left will cease interjecting. I gave the member for Wakefield his final warning. He kept interjecting; he can leave under standing order 94(a).