Kevin Hogan (Page, National 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 well-designed border protection policies, and is the minister aware of any alternative approaches to policymaking?

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 his question. As the Australian public knows, it's taken us a number of years, but we have tried our best to clean up Labor's mess in the border protection area. They allowed 50,000 people in on 800 boats and, tragically, 1,200 people drowned at sea. It's interesting to have a look at who the architect was behind the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years disaster on border protection policy. Everyone in this House knows and the Australian public needs to know that the man who wants to be the Treasurer in a Shorten government if Mr Shorten is to be elected leader at the next election is the person who was immigration minister, as it turned out, in the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years, and under the member for McMahon's reign we know that 25,000 people arrived on 400 boats. He's the man who wants to be the next Treasurer. He's designed this tax that we've just seen go down in a heap in the last 24 hours where he proposed to whack a tax on 300,000 pensioners, and who would have believed he presided over another mess? This guy, the member for McMahon—it's interesting to have a look at his background, because he was also a treasurer in the glorious periods of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years. He was one of Australia's worst treasurers. It was one of Australia's worst periods in government in this country. And do you know? It was a glorious reign—a short reign but glorious nonetheless! He believes that he is the next Paul Keating. Is that a Zegna suit you're wearing? It is not an expensive suit.

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

I'm just going to say to the minister: if he asks questions, I may well let the member answer!

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

Let me pose this question, Mr Speaker: does he have any antique clocks at home? Does he have any dodgy investments in piggeries? These would be important questions because, as it turns out, the only thing this poor man's Keating across here has done in terms of walking in the footsteps of Paul Keating—Paul Keating in 1992 set up mandatory immigration detention in this country—is that the member for McMahon, when he was the Minister for Immigration, increased the number of detention centres by six. He put into detention 4,000 children, and he has been a failed member of the Labor Party at every turn. The Australian public should be reminded that it's not only the Leader of the Opposition that has a dodgy track record, both as a member of parliament and as a union boss in this country. The member for McMahon was a failure in the Labor government, and he would be a disaster if ever he were ever to occupy the crossbenches in this place.