Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Home Affairs. Will the minister update the House on the importance of a strong and consistent approach to maintaining the integrity of Australia's borders? Is the minister aware of any differing views which may put our borders at risk?

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question. Like all Australians, he's very concerned about making sure that our country, as an island nation, has secure borders. We need to secure our borders so that we can keep our country safe.

Ms Plibersek interjecting—

I hear an interjection from the African Queen of—

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

No! The minister will withdraw.

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw. Aspiration is not a location within Africa, just to clarify for the honourable member opposite. This has been a very confusing week for the honourable member opposite. Don't forget—she was one of the people sitting around the cabinet table in the glorious Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years when 50,000 people came on 800 boats and, tragically, 1,200 people drowned at sea. Remarkably, the Labor Party under this Leader of the Opposition want to return a future Labor government to the delivery of that disaster. It would be an atrocious outcome. If you live in Caboolture, Burpengary or Wamuran at the moment and you're thinking about voting in the upcoming by-election, you will recognise that Labor says anything in opposition but does the complete opposite in relation to border protection when it gets into government. This Leader of the Opposition is tricky, and people have doubts about him. Have a look at his track record—they have justification for thinking that he is tricky. At the moment, he's just holding together the Labor Party's position on border protection with the support of our old friends from the CFMEU.

The CFMEU is essentially a modern-day mafia, an organised-crime group. We know that they have paid $15.2 million in fines and that members of the CFMEU have been charged with 982 offences. Last time that happened, under the BLF, Bob Hawke had the guts and the leadership to disassociate the Labor Party from the BLF—to deregister them and not accept their money. What we're seeing from this Leader of the Opposition, a man who is more unworthy than any leader of the Labor Party in modern times, is somebody who accepts every dollar for the Labor Party and relies on the CFMEU to get his policies through.

The constituents in the electorates of Longman, Braddon and elsewhere around the country, in the by-elections, know that this man is unfit to hold high office in this country. We know that Labor says one thing in opposition but, when it gets back into government, delivers disaster, particularly when it comes to border protection policies.