Sorry to mention the boats Chris – but your Sergeant Schultz defence of ‘not knowing anything’ about the 800 boats and 50,000 people that poured into Australia under your Government highlights Labor’s total inability to accept responsibility for its many failures.
Perhaps a quick recounting of recent history will help.
Remember the Howard Government stopped the boats.
Remember Labor then threw open the borders to the people smugglers.
Remember you were Immigration Minister from September 2010 until February 2013 – that’s a two year period that’s hard to forget Chris because 398 boats arrived in that time – carrying more than 24,000 illegal arrivals – almost half the total of Labor’s failed years.
Remember you were opening detention centres and filling them up with men, women and children.
But that’s nothing to do with you.
The attempts today to pass blame to the current Government for the huge numbers of illegal maritime arrivals that are yet to be processed by immigration and security agencies are little more than a pathetic attempt to avoid the hard questions.
Will Labor now support Temporary Protection Visas, regional processing and Operation Sovereign Borders? Can Labor guarantee it won’t return to its failed open borders policy?
They’re the questions Australians want Bill Shorten to answer. His silence remains deafening.
