Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Home Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Under Labor, 50,000 people arrived on 800 boats; 1,200 people, including women and children, drowned at sea; and 8,000 children were put into detention. Did the Labor Rudd and Gillard governments listen to the intelligence agencies? No, they did not. They had advice not to change the policies that John Howard had put in place, but they ignored the advice of the intelligence and law enforcement agencies. We know that Labor has learnt nothing since that time.

In December the Leader of the Opposition instructed 19 of his senators to vote for a reckless bill that will restart boats, and he did it without advice. That was bad enough. This week the Leader of the Opposition took a security briefing, eventually. He was given certain advice in relation to the bill proposed by him and the Greens and he chose to ignore the specific advice given to him by the director-general of ASIO, by the Chief of the Defence Force, by the general in charge of Operation Sovereign Borders and by the head of my department. If anybody has any doubts about what Labor would be like in relation to border protection—if people thought that maybe the Labor Party had learnt their lesson over the last six years—

Dr Mike Kelly interjecting—

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