Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Bernardi for his question. The Senate will be well aware that offshore processing has always been at the centre of a coalition government's border protection policies. Offshore processing worked as part of the suite of measures under the former Howard government, and the results under the Abbott government are clearly showing that offshore processing is working again.

The former Labor government—or the former Labor governments; I keep having to remind myself that there were three of them—dismantled offshore processing. The Australian public are now left, quite literally, with the policy disaster that resulted: over 50,000 people arrived here illegally by boat, over 1,000 confirmed deaths at sea; and a budget blow-out of almost $12 billion. I give those on the other side credit, though: they realised they made a huge mistake. We know that, because they had to side with us when we were in opposition to restore offshore processing. I do remember, however, that they were literally dragged kicking and screaming to this place in complete and utter embarrassment when they realised that they had to restore that which they had dismantled with such disastrous results. Unfortunately when we assumed office—even though offshore processing had been restored with the support of those who are now on this side—it was a dismal attempt to restore offshore processing. The former government underfunded offshore processing and refused to provide the necessary infrastructure to ensure that offshore processing would indeed work. It has been left to us—(Time expired)