Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer to his previous answer. I repeat: is the Prime Minister aware of any policies or decisions taken by him or his government that have diminished the operational capacity of the Australian Federal Police, specifically to investigate major drug importations, including the importation of cocaine?

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The chutzpah of the Leader of the Opposition! He stands up here and asks us about national security. This is the leader of a party that outsourced our border's sovereignty to people smugglers. This is the leader of a party that, despite all of the warnings and all of the knowledge, chose to abandon the integrity of our own borders—they abandoned all of that—and outsourced border protection to people smugglers. The extraordinary performance of the Labor Party in—

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order, on direct relevance. It's the second time a question of this nature has been asked—there's been no preamble in either—and it's specifically asking about decisions taken by the Prime Minister or his government.

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I listened to the question very carefully. Whilst it was a short question, they were a number of aspects it covered. The Prime Minister is entitled to a preamble and the Prime Minister is in order. There is no standing order that demands questions receive a yes/no answer. The Prime Minister has the call and he's being relevant to the question.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Speaker. If 50,000 illegal arrivals and over 1,000 deaths at sea was not enough on border protection—that was Labor's track record—

Mr Dreyfus interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Isaacs is now warned.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That's your glorious record. That's your record of failing Australians on security. What about the ADF? How many naval ships did the Labor Party commission in six years? None—nothing at all. We have set out to build and are in the process of designing and building 54 naval vessels. That's the commitment we've made—a real commitment to keep Australians safe.

As far as the Australian Federal Police is concerned, I can say this to honourable members: every decision we've taken, every policy we have set out and every measure relating to the AFP is focused on ensuring they have the capacity to keep us safe and the skills and the technology to do so in these dangerous times.