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

I think all Australians would agree that there is no greater example of incompetence and mismanagement than under this portfolio under the former Labor government. As Senator Seselja has said, in 2007 when the Labor government took office, there were four people in immigration detention that had arrived by boat. Effectively, the number of people arriving had been reduced to zero in 2002. Our immigration detention network was costing the Australian taxpayer less than $85 million—let me say that again, because I said 'million' not 'billion' dollars—per year. Yet what did the former Labor government do? They ripped apart the Howard government's proven Pacific solution and, in six years, we had in excess of 50,000 people arrive here illegally by boat, from a starting point of zero when they assumed office.

In terms of budget blow-outs, we had a budget blow-out of in excess of $11½ billion of taxpayers' money, when under the former Howard government the entire immigration detention network was costing the taxpayer less than $85 million. In terms of the human consequence of the failed border protection policies of those opposite, more than 14,500 desperate refugees living in camps were denied a place in our very precious humanitarian program because those places were taken by those who came to this country illegally. So, in terms of the impact, it was disastrous on both a financial level and a human level, and this government is turning it around.