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

We are protecting Australian borders. There has been a 75 per cent reduction in the number of illegal boat arrivals to this country in the 51 days since we took office. Unlike those on the other side who went into business with the people smugglers, we will put them out of business.

The other side may not like the answers that I am going to stand up here and give, but I can tell you that we are acting more appropriately than any other government—unless of course you want to talk about the former Howard government, which, when we left office in 2007, had four people in immigration detention and none of them had arrived illegally by boat. The legacy caseload that we have now picked up is in excess of 50,000 arrivals. So if you want to talk about securing Australian borders, we are the government that gets to do that. (Time expired)