Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

The opposition have been trying to work up a scare campaign about this for a couple of days now. I have just tried to make it very clear to them that we have capacity on Christmas Island and we have initiated plans to expand the capacity. Current capacity is about 1,400 but that is flexible because it depends in part on the types of groups that arrive: whether they are women and children, because they are accommodated separately—those sorts of issues. But currently the figure is about 1,400. We have a range of contingencies, which I have discussed publicly and in this chamber and have answered questions on, that will be applied if need be. I have also said publicly that we could use the Northern Immigration Detention Centre in Darwin for final stage processes if we needed to. But our first preference is to use Christmas Island, and we have invested in additional capacity there. That is all on the public record. It has been on the public record for months.