Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection. Will the minister explain to the House why it is so important to be resolute in dealing with the scourge of people smuggling? What would be the consequences of alternative approaches?

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Murray for her question, because the member for Corio has clearly running out of puff this week—two questions was far too much for him.

Resolve is important when it comes to dealing with these questions and the same resolve we have put on the borders is the same resolve the Minister for the Environment has shown in seeing the end of the carbon tax. There is no carbon tax under the government this Prime Minister leads. That is not a promise; that is an absolute fact. Well done to the Minister for the Environment and the Prime Minister. What we need, though, is resolution in all of these policies—the right policies in competent hands and the right resolve to back up those policies. This government on our borders will never, ever give an inch to people smugglers anywhere, any time. You will not find this government going straight to the option of the water taxi. But on that side, that was the practice every single day they were in government when these issues were presented.

The Australian people can now that we will exhaust any and every option to ensure that people-smuggling ventures are not successful into this country, and for almost seven months that has been the record of this government. Labor's failure has been one of policy when they were in government, has been one of competence when they were in government, but most of all it has been in resolve. They were weak in government and they are proving to be even weaker in opposition when it comes to our borders.

We have the shadow minister now abandoning the enhanced screening policy. It was implemented on 33 occasions by those opposite when they were in government and they said quite plainly that it meets our international obligations. In addition to that, those opposite want to wind up the water taxi again. The first option, as soon as the whistle blows from the people smugglers, the member for Corio, if he were the minister, he would have the water taxi out there in a heartbeat. That is not what this government is going to do. It is not what this government has ever done. We will never give an inch to those people smugglers.

I referred to those opposite yesterday in this House as a swarm of jellyfish, a bloom of jellyfish. What we will get from them is the jellyfish solution if they ever get back into government. But it will not be a jellyfish with a sting; it will be a jellyfish that has no spine, it will be a jellyfish that will just be taken away by every single current would take them in whatever direction they may be taken on. But not this government. Whether we win every battle or not when it comes to the people smugglers, our campaign against the people smugglers is succeeding, will succeed and will continue to succeed under the policies of this government.