Angie Bell (Moncrieff, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Home Affairs. Will the minister outline to the House the stable and certain approach the Morrison government is taking to support our law enforcement agencies to keep drugs off our streets?

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

I thank the honourable member for her question. Last week I had the great honour of visiting some of our law enforcement agencies, along with the commissioner of the Australian Federal Police, Reece Kershaw. We congratulated them on the closure of quite a remarkable job that they had been involved in for a period of about 10 months. It meant they'd had contact with their international counterparts, so we had also representatives from the Dutch police force there because together—our law enforcement and intelligence agencies working with their international counterparts—they had been able to disrupt a criminal syndicate that had planned to import into our country 850 kilograms of crystalline MDMA and 548 litres of MDMA oil. It had an estimated street value of $302 million and the quantity of drugs had the potential to be processed into 15 million tablets.

We know that some of those tablets were destined for schoolies on the Gold Coast and in other destinations around the country, and that, because of this disruption, those drugs were taken from our streets. Mr Speaker, I can tell you, as the parent of a teenager who just came back from schoolies, that I had some hair before schoolies started but no hair by the end of it! But she got back safely. I am misleading the House a little there; I'm sorry! But, nonetheless, it's a lot of stress for parents.

Mr Albanese interjecting—

That comb-over works for you, Albo, that's all I'll say! I've accepted my fate—the comb-over works for you!

Government members interjecting—

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

Members on my right! I also urge the minister not to be distracted.

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

I'm sorry. But I can say that we're working closely with our law enforcement agencies. We want to fund them properly, because we want them to be working on jobs that will keep Australians safe. We want to make sure that the investment into our law enforcement agencies allows the police to disrupt these criminal networks so that these drugs don't go into the hands of young Australians to destroy those lives.

What we've seen in the last 24 hours or so from those opposite is the complete contrast to that position of the government. The shadow Attorney-General has now referred people to the police on nine occasions, but do you know what his score is, Mr Speaker? It's nought from nine—nought from nine! He's a serial offender. He sits there in his pompous way, looking across—as he does now—believing somehow that he has a superior view. He does this to try to assassinate the character of people in this place. He fails dismally and he should stop tying up police resources and make sure he gets out of the way— (Time expired)