Today marks six months since the last successful people smuggling venture to Australia.
The Abbott Coalition Government is delivering our commitment to restore strong border protection policies to stop the boats.
The last successful people smuggling venture to Australia arrived on 19 December 2013.
Over the same six month period in 2012/13 under the previous government, a total of 190 boats with 12,773 people on board illegally arrived in Australia - more than a boat a day.
The Government’s success is delivering financial and humanitarian benefits.
Stopping the boats is saving the Budget $2.5 billion. The Government has also announced the closure of ten detention centres.
Operation Sovereign Borders is enabling the Government to provide 20,000 resettlement places through the Special Humanitarian Programme over five years for those waiting offshore in often desperate circumstances.
Stopping successful people smuggling ventures has led to a one third reduction in the number of children in detention. The best way to ensure there are no children in detention is to prevent the arrival of illegal boats.
Our policies are not only stopping the boats, they are reversing the flow of illegal arrivals under Labor. More illegal maritime arrivals have left the country than arrived under Operation Sovereign Borders.
Operation Sovereign Borders is working as intended. We acknowledge the work and dedication of the people and agencies across government in making this happen. They are doing a great service for our nation.
The people smugglers now understand that the way to Australia is closed. We are putting the smugglers out of business.
Under Labor over 800 boats arrived carrying more than 50,000 people, including more than 8,000 children. This catastrophic policy failure resulted in over 1,000 lives lost at sea and $11 billion in Budget blowouts.
The progress we are making in strengthening our borders is restoring confidence in our migration programme. We are an immigrant country and a successful immigration programme requires that it operate with integrity.
While today’s milestone recognises the progress that we have made, the Government remains resolute in our determination to stop the boats.
19 June 2014