Linda Reynolds (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

The opposition are a complete joke on this. Here's the issue on this issue of air arrivals: when people arrive illegally by boat they rarely have identification documents. We have no information on them, and that means an extended protection claim and legal process. In addition, these people also risk their lives on a perilous journey.

However, in contrast, when people arrive by airplane we have their passports, as well as any other relevant travel documentation. We know who that person is, and that allows us to take a quick consideration of their protection claim. In addition, a plane flight is considerably safer than a boat journey. So here are the facts, which those opposite either ignore or don't choose to look at: between 2014-15 and 2017-18, 64,362 people arrived by air and subsequently applied for protection. In the same four-year period, 7,615 people were granted a protection visa. This is a refusal rate of approximately 90 per cent.

Those who are rejected are expected to return to their country of origin. So you might be trying to get some easy press on this, but the reality is we have a growing number of international students, of tourists coming to our country and that is a great thing. We want all of those numbers to increase. As numbers increase, of course you will get an increase in all sorts of categories of people arriving, making claims to stay, and so you would expect that number to grow merely by the fact of the number of people who come here by air. But the government is taking appropriate steps to deal with this, including through the use of airport liaison officers in Dubai, in major hub ports so we can offload people where we know there is a threat.