Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research) Share this | Hansard source

The government will continue all its efforts to secure Australia's borders and to ensure that we treat people properly in that process. We are indicating to people who now are contemplating being in the hands of the people smugglers that it is not in their interest to engage in that action by seeking to travel to Australia by boat. We will settle the outstanding matters with Malaysia in the signing of an MOU very, very quickly. We are also in the process of engaging in ongoing talks with the Papua New Guinea government about the establishment of an assessment centre in that country. We have a range of measures, therefore, in place where we are seeking to deal with these matters in a firm but very fair approach to ensure that Australia is able to secure, within its inter­national treaty obligations, proper assess­ments of people seeking to come to this country by irregular movements.