Darwin
JOURNALIST: So are you aware of the latest breakout of 18 Vietnamese asylum seekers from the Northam Immigration Detention Centre?
PM: Yes I am, I've been briefed by the Minister for Immigration and the Department is making inquiries of Serco, the company that runs the detention centre, about this incident.
JOURNALIST: Does it concern you to hear?
PM: There have been, in the past, I have seen bigger instances than this.
You'd recall under the Howard Government that were considerably bigger in numbers than this incident.
But any incident needs to be investigated and that's what's happening.
JOURNALIST: Obviously we've had an increasing number of boats, we have had four escape earlier this week, I'm not sure they're been picked up. Should security be beefed up in some of the immigration detention centres we have in Darwin or across Australia?
PM: Well the Minister's already dealing with the matter, the Department's already making inquiries, so we'll get to the bottom of what's happened here.
But I would remind we've seen issues like this in the past under the Howard Government in far greater numbers.
We'll certainly get to the bottom of this and if anything needs to be changed then it will be changed.
JOURNALIST: It stoked claims that the Darwin immigration detention support groups around here have said it's further proof of inhumane conditions that people are forced to live in. What's your response to that?
PM: Well I don't accept that analysis.
We treat people in detention centres well.
We properly detain people, there's no excuse for poor conduct, never any excuse for poor conduct.
JOURNALIST: Do you think the border protection needs to be beefed up in the Territory given we are getting more boats?
PM: We deal with all of this; as you know I answer these questions a lot, and as you would be aware we received a very expert report and we've been stopped from implementing all of its recommendations because of the negativity of the Opposition.