Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is very interesting to follow the member for Kingsford Smith, who obviously remains in complete denial about the facts in relation to this matter. Our history records that Labor's policy of undoing the Howard government's policies on asylum seekers and border protection is the most monumental policy failure we have seen in our nation's history. But the real disaster, the real failure, was not so much on their tragically flawed original decision when they came to office in late 2007. The real disaster was the non-decisions of the Labor and Greens government when they continued on with those policies, failing to admit their mistakes when the disastrous consequences of those policies were obvious to every Australian. We know what they were: 800 boats, 50,000 arrivals, a budget blow-out of close to $12 billion. But most tragic of all was the deaths of 1,100 people that the policies of the people sitting on my right caused.

The previous Labor government turned the seas around Christmas Island into a graveyard, a graveyard of over 1,000 souls. This mob should hang their heads in shame. You should hang your heads in shame, you should be cringing with embarrassment and you should let us get on with cleaning up the mess that you created.

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