Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Small and Family Business) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Stoker for the question. Following on from what the Leader of the Government in the Senate articulated earlier today, we've put in place the policies that have enabled the coalition government to stop the boats. That's right—policies have been put in place to stop the boats. But, in particular, Mr President, those policies consist of, as you know, turn-backs, which is something that those on the other side said would never work. Well, guess what? We didn't blink, we put them in place and the policy has been proven to be effective. We also enforced offshore processing. Offshore processing is a key tenet of putting in place policies that secure Australia's borders.

But those on the other side are not interested in border protection. They are interested in outsourcing Australia's border protection and national security. They are interested in handing it back over to the people smugglers. We know what the legacy is, as Senator Cormann said, but let's go through it again so that the Australian public understands the very, very clear difference between those of us on the coalition side, who will protect our borders every step of the way, and those on the other side, who were ready this week to say to the people smugglers, 'Come on down.' Fifty thousand people arrived on over 800 boats, 1,200 people died at sea and over 8,000 children were detained in detention whilst those on the other side, Labor, were in government. They were forced to open 17 detention centres to deal with the influx of boat arrivals. We believe in strong policy measures and we will stand by them. (Time expired)