Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Small and Family Business) Share this | Hansard source

It's because, when you outsource border protection to the people smugglers, you actually are admitting that you have lost control of our borders. On this side of the chamber—on the Liberal-National side of politics—we will always ensure that the security of our nation and the security of the Australian people is put as a fundamental responsibility of the Commonwealth government. Otherwise you get chaos and, when you get chaos under Labor and the Greens, what you see is 50,000 people arriving here illegally on over 800 boats. What you also see is 1,200 deaths at sea—that we know of. What you also see is over 8,000 children being detained when Labor were last in government. What you also see is 17 detention centres being opened. You have to keep opening detention centre after detention centre because of the chaos that is put in place by losing control of our borders. (Time expired)