George Christensen (Dawson, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Wasteful Wayne has popped back up! We asked the Prime Minister why there was this big difference: 'It cost $239 million to run offshore processing on Nauru and Manus Island over six years under the coalition. Why are you saying that it is going to cost $1 billion in a year?' She told someone, 'What the member might want to recognise is how far away it is and the fact that all the resources need to be flown to Nauru.' One would think, listening to this, that there has been a continental shift—that either we have drifted further towards Antarctica, or Nauru has somehow drifted closer to Europe. It is just ridiculous.

Offshore processing on Nauru is only one policy that would work to stop the boats, but on its own it will not work. We know that. We said it during the debate on the government's latest offshore processing legislation, and we have been saying it all along. Now there are over 1,800 reasons—the number of illegal immigrants who have turned up since the government's legislation was passed in this place—that offshore processing on Nauru will not work on its own. I do not believe for a single second that, after Nauru is designated as a regional processing country today, the boats are going to stop coming. They are going to keep coming, and they will not stop until the whole suite of policies that the member for Berowra had in place is brought back.

One of those policies is the reopening of the offshore processing centres on Nauru and Manus Island, but more important is the reintroduction of temporary protection visas. We need to have a system in place that says to illegal immigrants who arrive here: 'Even if we find that you are a genuine refugee, you've gone about it the wrong way. So you will ever only ever get temporary protection in this country, and that means that, once the threat to your life or wellbeing in the country you have fled from has gone, you will be returned.' That is the only way that there is going to be a real solution to the problem of illegal arrivals. We advocate turning around the boats where it is safe to do so, and the Liberal-National coalition will do this if we get a chance to govern. We also advocate that, if you find that people claiming refugee status have destroyed their identification, you should make the presumption that they are not genuine refugees.

It is this suite of policies, not offshore processing on Nauru on its own, which will stop the boats. (Time expired)

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