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

I thank Senator Back for his question and for his ongoing interest in the government's policies that have been stopping the boats. I think it is very, very clear that, when you have strong and consistent border protection policies, you can stop the boats. When you have strong and consistent border protection policies, you send a very, very clear message to the people smugglers that, under this government, they do not have a policy to sell.

This government has been able to implement its strong and consistent border protection policies despite the protestations from those opposite that its policies would never work. The evidence is clear: we have delivered on the promise that we made to the Australian people prior to the 2013 election. We said to them: if you elect us to office, we will implement strong border protection policies and we will stop the boats—and that is exactly what we have done.

The importance of the government's strong border protection policies is evidenced in so many ways, not least of which, of course, is this one statistic: 1,992. For those who do not recall what that statistic is, quite frankly, shame on you on the other side because that is the number of children in the detention network under the former government when it peaked in 2013. Of course, we cannot forget that, under those opposite, a total of 8,469 children arrived on leaky boats as a result of the former government's failure in relation to our borders. We on this side understand strong border protection policies stop the boats.