Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to this debate and I place on record my congratulations to Minister Morrison and Assistant Minister Cash for executing so effectively the coalition policy, which was promised at the last election, to stop the boats. I think it has been an absolute testament to the capacity of that minister and his assistant minister—led, of course, by the Prime Minister and the cabinet.

I speak for the more than 1,100 people who are known to have perished in the 2,200 days, or six years, of Labor government—approximately one every second day. I say those known, because as part of Operation Sovereign Borders, I had the opportunity earlier this year to spend some time at Larrakeyah Barracks in Darwin. I asked the Navy personnel—the very ones who were pushed to the limit as a result of the flawed policies of the Labor and Greens government of the time—whether they thought that the figure of 1,100 people known to have perished was accurate. Each of them looked at me ruefully and said, 'Senator Back, we know that to be an absolutely conservative figure'. Given that statistic, in the 400 days of the coalition government to date, we can safely say that at least 200 people have had their lives saved as a result of not falling to the people smugglers and not being put to sea on unseaworthy boats in sea conditions that they should never have been in. Of course, we all know what the result of that has been. This is what this is about. This is what this particular issue concerns.

I do not recall Senator Hanson-Young being vocal in those days when we were feeding the people smugglers and when people were putting their unaccompanied children on boats.

Senator Hanson-Young interjecting—

I did not hear Senator Hanson-Young once open her mouth and speak about the refugees, those people who had been processed and found to be genuine, rotting for second and even third generations in refugee camps. I never heard this senator open her mouth once during all that time. All I hear her doing today is bleating away in the circumstances.

Let me go back to the time when the Howard government was in power—