Kevin Andrews (Menzies, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Can the Prime Minister advise the House on how quickly people smugglers can respond to any changes in border protection policy, and also can he advise the House if there are any risks in this regard?

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Menzies, as a former immigration minister himself, is very aware of the threats that come from people smugglers who seek to take advantage of Australia. He would know, like I know and like the Minister for Home Affairs, who is not with us here today, knows, that there are 14,000 people currently in Indonesia waiting to get on a boat. They are ready and waiting. And they're waiting for one thing: they are waiting for the Leader of the Opposition to become Prime Minister of this country. That's what they're waiting for—for the leader of the Labor Party to become the Prime Minister of Australia so it's game on in Indonesia for people smuggling. They know—because it happened back in 2007—the form of the Labor Party. They know that, if they can get Labor policy back on the books of the Australian government, there are 14,000 people who will be ready and waiting to jump on a boat and pay the money—and the people smugglers know this too.

Under our policies, there used to be a people smuggler who used to run a pretty good business. He's driving a cab in Jakarta now because he's got no people-smuggling business because we put him out of business. We put people smugglers out of business right across Indonesia and all the way up through the people-smuggling chain. We've pursued them and we've had them prosecuted; we've worked with the Indonesian government to do all those things because we know that this business could revive instantaneously. These networks can be revived and re-established. That is why it is just beyond belief that the Labor Party, who were so malevolently negligent when they were in government when it came to their failures on border protection, would now, as part of some sort of cheap political pointscoring in this chamber, seek to put all of that at risk and to provide support for the dismantling of offshore processing in this country; it is truly extraordinary. But the people smugglers know it; they know the mettle of the Leader of the Labor Party. They know the Labor Party. The Labor Party is the best friend that people smugglers have ever had. When we talk about busting their business model, these characters would be eligible for membership of the board of directors of them because of the way they have contributed to their business model as people smugglers in the past.

We don't want to go back to 8,000 children in detention. We got all the children out of detention and, as Prime Minister in the last three months, I've got 100 children off Nauru, down to the levels that the minister for immigration has outlined. We don't want to see 10,000 people go back into detention. We don't want to see 18 detention centres open again. We stopped the boats; we'll keep them stopped. Those opposite will let it rip. (Time expired)