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

Resolve is necessary if you want to end deaths at sea. Resolve is necessary if you want to ensure that we do not have the 1,200 people confirmed dead under those policies that the former government supported. Resolve is necessary to ensure that the Australian taxpayer does not face an $11.6 billion cost blow-out because of failed border protection policies. Resolve is necessary to ensure that a government does not have to build detention centre after detention centre to house the in excess of 50,000 people who arrived illegally by boat because of the former government's failed policies. Resolve is also necessary to ensure that we restore integrity to our borders and that we ensure that places in our refugee program—which are, of course, precious—are given to those who have spent five, 10, 15 or 20 years languishing in camps, those who do not have the means or the opportunity to flee, to buy tickets to another country by plane and then to pay a people smuggler for illegal passage to Australia. So what would happen, Senator Ruston, if we were to weaken our resolve in relation to our border protection policies? You only have to take a look at the past six years of cost, chaos and tragedy to tell you what would occur.