Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Hansard source

Eleven! That's the first time in nine years that we've had to send IMOs to Nauru. Labor seems to take some sort of perverse delight in sending children to Nauru. Once again, it will be this government that has to clean up this mess.

Let's look at the Nixon review, which is the rapid review that the government sat on for over six months. Let's just see what has happened when it comes to arrivals by plane under this government. According to the latest data, 25,887 plane arrivals have now sought asylum under Labor. September was the second month in a row that more than 2,000 asylum seekers have lodged a claim for protection under Labor. The number of failed asylum seekers awaiting deportation has grown to 75,862. Meanwhile, just 17 failed asylum seekers left the country in September. Labor have deported just 184 failed asylum seekers since they won the election. And this statistic is incredibly important: 11,242 asylum seekers lodged an asylum claim between the government receiving the Nixon review and announcing a response seven months later. That's right: the government has been going on about the need for urgent action, condemning the Leader of the Opposition et cetera, yet they sat on this rapid review for seven months and did nothing with it. That's how important they saw the review as being—seven months, and not a response. They didn't even release it when they got it.

Then, to embarrass the government, the report was released by the media. Even though it had been sitting there for six months on the website of one of our media organisations, the government still wouldn't say whether that was or wasn't the review or when they were going to release it. While that was taking place, we've seen more asylum seekers come by plane and we've seen the government fail to deport those who have failed their claims. This is what the minister said:

You have … two ministers—

O'Neil and Giles—

that are acutely aware of the very significant responsibility we have for managing this system properly.

…   …   …

At the end of the day, our names are on the door. We're accountable to the Australian people …

If the ministers are accountable, get accountable for the 80 people who were released over the weekend and make sure you're keeping the community safe. Get on top of those plane arrivals, and get on top of the illegal maritime arrivals.

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