Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Home Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

In relation to the question asked by the honourable member, I am not aware of the comments made by the minister, to which Dr Stone referred in the question. This government takes border protection very seriously. It is for that reason we have dedicated $654 million to protecting our borders. It is for that reason that we have a policy that ensures we work with governments within our region and we work with the law enforcement agencies. Only very recently there was a disruption of the syndicates in Indonesia. That was a direct result of the efforts of this government’s work with the Indonesian National Police to disrupt those ventures and to prosecute the people smugglers. It is the case that there has been an increase in unlawful maritime arrivals. I make this very important point: if we were to determine a government’s performance based on unlawful or irregular maritime arrivals, then the Howard government’s record was the worst in the last 40 years. In relation to the capacity of the detention centre on Christmas Island, it is very clear that—

See this speech in context