Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Edwards for his question. The temporary protection visas that have been reintroduced by this government, the government that will stop the boats, have been restored to bring integrity and fairness back into Australia's humanitarian settlement services program. One of the great benefits of TPVs which was completely lost under the former government is that those who arrive here illegally by boat will not receive any of the places in our refugee humanitarian settlement services program, unlike successive Labor governments that turned their backs on the most vulnerable people internationally and allowed the people smugglers to determine who came to this country as opposed to a sovereign government. We will not do that. We will not turn our backs on the refugees that have been waiting patiently in camps all over the world, some of them for in excess of 20 years. Under the former government the majority of the 13,750 places went to people who arrived here illegally by boat. They displaced the most vulnerable—