Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Vice-President of the Executive Council) Share this | Hansard source

The government are 100 per cent committed to our current strong border protection policy framework, unamended. Of course, we will not be supporting any attempts to weaken our strong border protection arrangements.

I draw the Senate's attention to this particular reality: Mr Shorten decided to back a watering down of our border protection arrangements, which today he had to admit and confess would have prevented us from turning away criminals from Australia, and which today he had to confess, through his amendments, would have put the pull factor back into our border protection arrangements, which is, of course, at the heart of the product that the people smugglers sell to those poor people who take their chances across the high seas—many of them, too many of them, at risk to their lives. I say it again: Bill Shorten cannot be trusted with protecting our borders. He would make our country weaker.