Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. According to a report, Afghans with valid Australian visas who protected the Australian embassy and their families, up to 1,200 people, were left to wait outside Kabul airport, some standing in sewage, before being turned away. Is that report true?

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

What I can confirm is last night 950 people were evacuated from one of the most dangerous places on earth. They were done by the brave men and women serving in our defence forces, supported by our officers from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Department of Home Affairs, dealing with one of the most difficult situations anyone in this place could imagine—950 people in one night on five very dangerous flights.

Some 2,650 people, in the course of the last 22 flights, have now been evacuated from Kabul back to AMAB. They are already returning home now to Australia, where so many of those Afghan nationals and their families who have served and supported Australians over many years join the 1,900 who have already come to Australia before this most recent series of events commenced. They will make their home here and they will become Australians, and they will be very, very welcome.