Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker) 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 importance of maintaining Australia's strong and consistent border protection policies? Is the minister aware of any alternative approaches?

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 and thank all of my colleagues on this side of the House for their consistent support in backing a strong border protection policy. The Australian public knows not only that the Turnbull government has stopped boats but also that we are determined to keep that policy into the future, because the threat of people smugglers has not dissipated. It has now been 1,039 days since the last successful boat arrival, but Australia is still burdened, I am sorry to say, with the disastrous legacy of Labor's border protection policies. All Australians know that 50,000 people came on 1,800 boats and 1,200 people drowned at sea. And we know that 8,000 children went into detention.

But I do not think all Australians know this figure: so far, to date, Labor's policy failure on boats has cost the Australian taxpayer $13.7 billion. But it does not stop there, because the meter is still running. It is now costing the taxpayer of Australia $1.9 billion every year, and it will take us years to clean up Labor's mess. You would have thought that Labor had learnt their lesson, but the reality is that they have not. Those people on the frontbench of the Australian Labor Party today are the people who, in government, presided over the decisions that resulted in this policy outrage. We know, for example, that the member for Watson was minister when 83 boats arrived carrying 6,634 people, and 1,103 children were detained under his watch. We know that the member for Gorton was minister when 184 boats arrived. Those boats carried 12,800 people, and 200 children went into detention under his watch.

But let's come to the crescendo: the member for McMahon, this man who wants to be the Treasurer of this country—he presided over Fuelwatch and GroceryWatch, but his greatest work as a minister in the Gillard government came when he was immigration minister, when 25,000 people arrived on 398 boats. Bur, worse than that, over 4,000 children went into detention. He can pretend to be in conversation with the member for Sydney over there, but the reality is that we need bipartisanship on the issue of boats policy and stopping people coming into our country illegally. The fact is that the Labor Party has not learnt its lesson. There is not bipartisanship in this country when it comes to boat policy. Labor has not learnt its lesson in relation to recent mistakes, and this Leader of the Opposition has failed the test.

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

I ask that further question be placed on the Notice Paper.