Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Home Affairs. Would the minister advise the House why the government believes in strong and consistent border protection policies? How is the government acting on those beliefs to keep Australians safe? Is the minister aware of any alternative policies which would put our border protection measures at risk?

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Home Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question. Like everybody on this side of the House, we are very much alive to the need for strong border protection, for strong national security measures. As we're seeing in Europe, we have somewhere in the vicinity of 1,400 or 1,500 people who have drowned in the Mediterranean this calendar year alone. We have 14,000 people in Indonesia who would seek to come by boat to Australia tomorrow if they thought that the route was open again. We have people smugglers marketing New Zealand as a destination. Whether people smugglers seek to travel all the way to New Zealand or whether they seek simply to make Australian landfall at some point is open to debate.

What we do know is that a government needs to have strong resolve. Before our government, the last government to have strong resolve on border protection was the Howard government. The Howard government took tough decisions and got children out of detention. In fact, when John Howard left office in 2007, four people were in detention, including no children. When we came to government, 50,000 people had arrived on 800 boats because Labor had lost control of our borders. As the Prime Minister rightly pointed out before, the most tragic aspect of that was the 1,200 people, including women and children, who had drowned at sea. When I speak to the officers of the Royal Australian Navy, Australian Border Force and others involved in Operation Sovereign Borders, they never want us to revisit that policy dysfunction again. They don't want to return to Labor's days where they lose control of our borders, because we know now of the effects.

Every day since the last election, the Leader of the Opposition has gently announced a roll-back of the opposition's policy, the Labor Party's policy, in relation to border protection. They don't support temporary visas. They don't support offshore processing. They don't support turning back boats where it's safe to do so. It's in their rhetoric. It's in their DNA. They don't believe the success that we've had under Operation Sovereign Borders. If they are elected at the election, as sure as night follows day, this Leader of the Opposition will follow the example of Mr Rudd and Ms Gillard. People will drown at sea, boats will recommence, children will be back in detention.

We have closed 17 detention centres. The 8,000 children Labor put into detention have been released. We have not had a drowning at sea on my watch. We are making sure that we are not complacent in relation to the threats that still exist. The Australian public know in their souls that they can't trust this Leader of the Opposition. Look no further than border protection policy. (Time expired)