Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Hansard source

This government will never honour the promises of people smugglers, because what people smugglers promise is permanent residence in Australia. It does not matter whether that promise was made three years ago or three days ago, this government will never honour the promise of a people smuggler. That is why this government has honoured its commitment to restore temporary protection visas. It moved swiftly to do that, and on 18 October they came back into being. That happened because more than five years ago the previous government abolished temporary protection visas, and we know what happened after August 2008 when they abolished temporary protection visas. We know that more than 50,000 people turned up illegally on boats.

We also know—and I draw this particularly to the attention of the Leader of the Opposition, who has had a bit to say today about the impact of temporary protection visas on children getting on boats—that, when more than 50,000 people turned up illegally on boats, that included more than 8,000 children. More than 8,000 children arrived after they abolished temporary protection visas, because when you say you are going to honour the promise of a people smuggler what happens is that people come, and they come, and they come, as they did in their hundreds and their thousands and their tens of thousands, with over 800 boats arriving under the previous government. So we have taken action to restore temporary protection visas. The opposition might like to know that since we have done that, 181 people who were sitting in the community on bridging visas waiting around for a permanent protection visa from the previous government have decided to go home. They have decided to leave because there is no point hanging around for a temporary protection visa, because they will not get what the people smugglers promised them. This afternoon the opposition will be tested, because in the Senate they will have to vote on whether they are going to join the Greens yet again to disallow the introduction of temporary protection visas.

See this speech in context