George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

I am bound to say that is an extraordinarily insensitive question. You are talking about a man who has self-immolated and died, whose family is in grief. You are talking about a woman who on the last report I had, a few minutes before question time, is in a critical condition in a Brisbane hospital. These are terrible events, and every person in this chamber should be saddened by them.

But what we do not want to do and what we are determined not to do is to go back to a situation that existed prior to the election of this government when the number of deaths or serious injuries were not numbered in ones and twos but were numbered in thousands. We know that on the most conservative estimate more than 1,200 people perished at sea as a result of policies that you applauded. Since this government implemented its policies to which the Labor Party belatedly has also subscribed, not a single man, woman or child has died at sea. And we make absolutely no excuse for having a policy to stop the boats, because, if you stop the boats, you stop the drownings. You stop the drownings and you stop the deaths.

We believe that driving people smugglers out of business by destroying their capacity to sell a product to gullible and vulnerable people is absolutely a valid public policy objective and an important objective, and the Australian people are right with us.