Through the week, it was very disappointing to see Labor leader Bill Shorten support the Greens and Independents in passing a bill that will dismantle an important component in Australia’s strong border protection policies.
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Despite expert advice from chief of the Defence Force, the head of ASIO and the head of the Federal Police, Mr Shorten decided to follow the path Labor did the last time they were in government when they dismantled John Howard’s border protection policies.
The advice from our intelligence agencies is clear—any weakening of our current border protection policies will re-open the people smuggler trade and we will once again have deaths at sea.
As the Greens have admitted this week, “several hundred” transferees will arrive within weeks, and the Labor amendments allow for all sorts of dangerous people to come to Australia.
Labor has already said they would provide permanent visas to anyone that arrives by boat. They have now dismantled offshore processing, giving people smugglers to green light to start their evil campaigns that led to the deaths of 1200 asylum seekers.
Bill Shorten and the Labor Party do not have the mettle to secure and manage Australia’s border protection framework and broader national security interests.
Our strong border protection policies mean we’ve been able to stop the boats and work through the backlog of cases Labor created when 50,000 people illegally entered Australia on 800 boats on their watch.
Under the Liberal and Nationals, we have got all children Labor put in detention centres out, and we have shut down all the detention centres Labor opened, including on Christmas Island. We have been working quietly to have all children removed from Nauru, without compromising the integrity of Operation Sovereign Borders, which we established to stop the boats back in 2013.
Australia has one of the most generous humanitarian immigration programs in the world, but we can only do it by maintaining strong borders and on insisting people come the right way.