Jason Falinski (Mackellar, 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 a strong and united approach to criminal, people-smuggling syndicates in our region? Is the minister aware of any risks to the jobs of those working so hard to keep our community safe?

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. The Australian public knows that this government stands for strong border protection policies. As we're seeing in the United States at the moment and as we're seeing right across Europe, the issue of illegal migration is going to be with us for a long time to come. We know that this government has now turned back over 30 boats. Had those 30 boats got through, we would be seeing the same scenes that we saw when Labor was last in government, with people, tragically, drowning at sea and children piling into detention centres, as we're seeing on our television screens out of the Mediterranean and in the US at the moment. So it is incredibly important for the public to understand what each side of politics in this country represents when it comes to the very important issue of border protection. This government's position has remained consistent. When Mr Howard left office in 2007, there were four people in detention, and no children. Under Labor, 8,000 children were put in detention, 1,200 people drowned at sea and 50,000 people came on 800 boats. As I said, there is no doubt in the public's mind that we on this side of the parliament, the coalition, fully support our Border Force personnel in keeping our borders secure. But people are completely mystified as to what the Labor Party stands for when it comes to border protection policy.

Mr Speaker, you'll remember that a couple of weeks ago there was a Labor Party conference in Melbourne where the CFMEU rode into town and stopped the motion being debated. I see there's an excellent article today by Troy Bramston in The Australian. He says:

Labor hopes to avoid an internal brawl on refugee policy by scheduling debate on its 'social justice and legal affairs' platform on Sunday afternoon at the NSW party's annual conference.

He goes on to say:

Debate on refugee policy was shut down at the Victorian Labor Party conference last month. The right faction and the industrial left grouping, including the Construction Forestry Maritime Mining and Energy Union, joined forces to deny debate on motions such as closing offshore detention centres.

All the public is asking for is for this Leader of the Opposition, just once, to be honest with them, not to conduct himself in this shady, shifty way. The reality is that the Australian public want an honest— (Time expired)