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

My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister update the House on the action the government is taking to ensure that Australia's borders are safe and secure?

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for his question and I thank him for his concerns to ensure that our country remains safe. I can inform him that today, together with the minister for border protection and the Minister for Justice, I visited Strategic Border Command to thank all the personnel there from all the many agencies involved for their work to keep our country safe. The men and women of Strategic Border Command are the people who are stopping the boats, who are stopping the guns, who are stopping the drugs and who, very importantly, are stopping the potential terrorists as well.

Importantly, this government has restored $700 million that Labor cut from our Customs and Border Protection Service, including $88 million that Labor cut from screening. That meant that there was 25 per cent less screening of sea cargoes and 75 per cent less screening of air cargoes.

I want to thank all the personnel of Strategic Border Command and our other arms and agencies for the work they have done to stop the boats. Between 2008 and the election there were almost 1,000 illegal boats. There were more than 50,000 illegal arrivals by sea. Tragically, there were more than 1,000 deaths and there were $11 billion in border protection cost blow-outs. But since the turn-back policy was put in place in December 2013, just one illegal boat has arrived on our shores. There are, I regret to say, despite the best efforts of our border forces, too many illegal firearms here in this country. That is why this government wants to introduce mandatory five-year minimum sentences for people who traffic in illegal firearms and I do invite members opposite to join us in supporting this legislation.

The drug ice is an absolutely dreadful scourge—a dreadful and growing scourge, as all members of this parliament know. It ruins lives, it destroys families, it hurts communities and I am particularly concerned about its impact on regional communities. I am pleased to say that our agencies are seizing more of it. In the first seven months of this year some 5.7 tonnes of illegal drugs, much of it ice, was seized. I particularly want to acknowledge the work of our counterterrorist units at our international airports. So far they have spoken to some 86,000 individuals and they have taken some 230 individuals off planes bound for the Middle East.

I have a simple message to anyone thinking of joining the death cult: do not do it. It is dangerous for you and it is dangerous for others. We will stop you for your own good and for ours.