Ben Morton (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Home Affairs. Will the minister update the House on the importance of maintaining a national consistent approach to border protection policy? 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 honourable member for his question. I acknowledge the great work that he's doing in his electorate, and this is a very important issue not only to Western Australians but to all Australians. Most Australians would realise that you can't have a state-by-state approach to national border protection policy. That would be a disaster. We know the last time that there was a disaster in the border protection policy it was presided over by Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard and then Kevin Rudd again. The Leader of the Opposition sat around the cabinet table in each of those administrations, and he presided over 50,000 people coming on 800 boats and 1,200 people tragically drowning at sea. But it seems that they haven't learnt their lesson, because the Labor Party now is proposing a Melbourne version of Operation Sovereign Borders and a Brisbane version of Operation Sovereign Borders.

The thing is that there is a national press gallery. We see them up here today and acknowledge their presence; we thank them for the work that they do. They're going to hear the messages from the Leader of the Opposition in Melbourne, and it's going to be a very different message from the message the Leader of the Opposition is speaking in Longman. If you're up in Bribie Island or Wamuran or Caboolture, you would be very angry to hear the Leader of the Opposition saying one thing in Victoria but the complete opposite in Queensland. I'm not sure how the Leader of the Opposition is going to reconcile this, but I know how those in Indonesia and Vietnam and the people smugglers elsewhere across the region will interpret it. They will hear the message, as they did—the confused message from the Leader of the Opposition at Christmastime when he said you could just usher these people into New Zealand without consequences. The people smugglers will hear a divided message from Labor again, and they will see through the weakness of this Leader of the Opposition as they saw through the weakness and the duplicity of Labor leaders past.

The reality is that you need to have a strong and united position, a national position, in relation to staring down the scourge of people smugglers. We have not had a death at sea for over three years because of the success of Operation Sovereign Borders, and we aren't going to start now. We've not got children in detention. We got 8,000 children out of detention put into detention by Labor, and we aren't going to allow the boats to recommence and see those children go back into detention. So when the duplicity starts, when you hear this Leader of the Opposition speaking out of one side of his mouth in Victoria and the other side of his mouth when he is up in Caboolture, Bribie Island or Wamuran, see through his lies. See through what he's saying. The Australian public get it when they look at this Leader of the Opposition. They know that he's shady. They know that he's not straight up and down. They know that he doesn't speak the truth. The Australian public worked it out with Rudd and Gillard, and they are getting from this Leader of the Opposition exactly the same vibe. (Time expired)