George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

No, we will not, and there is a reason why we will not: because the policy has been successful. As a result of that policy—a policy that I know has been opposed tooth and nail by the Greens—we have stopped the people smuggling trade. We have stopped the penetration of Australia's maritime borders by people smugglers. We have saved countless lives. On the most conservative estimates more than 1,200 people, many of them innocent women and children, drowned at sea during the period when our borders were out of control, and some 50,000 people arrived in Australia illegally.

Senator Hanson-Young, we have absolutely no intention of reversing the policies which saw that evil trade stopped and returning to policies that saw those lives lost, that saw the loss of control by Australia of its borders. We are proud of the humanitarian achievement of saving all of those lives. We are proud of the release of all the children who have been released from detention—an issue about which you have spoken often and eloquently, Senator Hanson-Young, but about which we can point to actual results.

Because of the policies that you supported in previous years, the number of children in detention peaked at 1,992. As a result of the policies of this government, which you so decry, the number of children in detention today is 109. That is one-twentieth of the number of children that were in detention as a result of policies of which you approved, Senator Hanson-Young. We will not be going back to the bad old days. We will not be embracing those failed policies—not for a moment.