James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Madam Acting Deputy President, I cannot ignore Senator Cameron. He is the light on my hill sometimes. But I am happy to talk about promises, because we went to the election promising to stop the boats, which we have stopped, and we went to the election promising to get rid of the carbon tax; we got rid of the carbon tax. We promised to get rid of the mining tax and we promised to get the budget under control. That is what we are doing at the moment except for the rambunctious behaviour of the Labor Party and their rather quirky approach to good fiscal and economic management.

Senator Cameron interjecting—

As much as I would love to have a good chat with Senator Cameron, I think we should focus today on the coalition's commitment to stop the boats. The coalition went to the last election and the 2010 election to stop the boats, because we wanted to build a safe and secure Australia. This included a package of policy measures we took to the last election and included turning back the boats where safe and the reintroduction of temporary protection visas, which were previously very successful in stopping the boats during the term of the Howard government.

Despite being opposed by Labor and the Greens at every turn, this government's strong stance has been an excellent success to date in stopping the boats, preventing deaths at sea and getting children out of detention. We are building a safe and secure Australia.

Senator Cameron interjecting—

We have had some interjections here, but I am very happy for them to talk about Labor's record and the Greens' record when they were in government. They do not want to talk about their record when they were in government. For Labor and the Greens, for the period between 2007 and 2013 they have a collective amnesia about what happened with border protection and building a safe and secure Australia. It was Labor and the Greens under the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd governments that weakened Australia's borders and caused an influx of people smuggling and boats arriving on Australia's shores. Labor pursued 11 immigration policies while they were in government. Tony Abbott, Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton have led the government's charge to build a safe and secure Australia—