Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

We just heard briefly from Senator Thorp, from Tasmania, about sideshows over substance, but I think we have seen very clearly that the Labor Party cannot even bring itself to conduct a decent sideshow, let alone bring about decent policy initiatives in the important area of border protection. We heard from my Senate Labor colleague from Western Australia, Senator Louise Pratt, who talked about the poor performance of previous speakers, and we heard from her about the shallow rhetoric of the coalition. We heard a very strong and articulate performance by my fellow Liberal senators from Western Australia, Senator Cash and Senator Johnston. From Senator Cash, we clearly heard a clear plan that had courage at its core to address this very important issue affecting our nation. We heard accusations of poor performance and shallow policy making, which are more aptly put at the feet of this Labor government. We heard—it was surprising to hear—a defence of the Malaysian solution from one former Labor senator, when we know that that was struck down not by electors but by the High Court. What we do not have in this Labor government is any sense of a credible suite of policies to tackle what is a very critical issue.

We heard from my Western Australian Labor Senate colleague about the coalition's plans being dangerous. I know Australians will be very confident that the coalition's plans will instead be very effective and will not put at risk the lives of many people who are trying to come to this country. We also heard from Labor senators that the statistics speak for themselves. Senator Johnston was quite right to draw the Senate's attention to what those statistics really are: 724 illegal boats since this government was elected; 44,219 people arriving in Australia on those 724 illegal boats—this is just one amongst a litany of dangerous and appalling policy initiatives of this government, and one that they have clearly not been able to tackle. This is a government that continues to break records. Sadly, for Australia and its people, this is something of which we cannot be proud. On Saturday, my colleague Senator Cash and I were in Kwinana attending a Liberal Party State Council meeting in support of our excellent candidate in the federal electorate of Brand, Donna Gordin. The city of Kwinana gained its cityhood only weeks ago as a result of having reached 30,000 people, and it is a collection of communities south of Perth—but already we have almost 45,000 people arriving here illegally in Australia as the result of this government's poor policy initiatives.

In opposition, Julia Gillard said, 'another boat, another policy failure'. By her own words then, the Prime Minister is responsible for 724 policy failures. Her failures have resulted in unprecedented costs, and chaos and tragedy on our borders—billions and billions of dollars in budget blowouts. As the number grows, what is the government's solution? Put simply, it is to run up the white flag. Labor has no plans, no ideas, and clearly no strategy to stop the flow of boats. Indeed, the Labor Party would prefer to focus on its own internal squabbles rather than on the increasingly difficult issue of border protection. We see week in, week out at the moment an increasingly unedifying political death march being walked between the Prime Minister and the member for Griffith, Mr Rudd. Australia is on track to reach 25,000 people arriving illegally by boat in this financial year alone, another record of which the Labor government cannot be proud.

It is with some irony that we now recall that the Prime Minister used the flow of boat arrivals as one of her primary reasons for stabbing Kevin Rudd in the back. Remember? To knock him off, she said that Mr Rudd could not solve the problem. Here we are, almost exactly three years later and the problem has grown significantly worse. That is the Prime Minister's record and that will be her legacy when her time in office ends—whether that is today, tomorrow, next week or in 89 days' time. As we know, this government took a solution and created a problem. The Howard government had solved the problem, thanks to its tough stance on the use of temporary protection visas. Under that arrangement people had ceased risking— (Time expired)

Question agreed to.