February 21, 2024
JAMES PATERSON: Well, good afternoon. The government is out there spinning furiously, but the numbers don't lie. And they're available in black and white in the budget papers. If you look at the budget that Jim Chalmers handed down in May last year, it's abundantly clear. The Labor party plans to cut $600 million out of the border protection budget over the next four years. Even if you look at the government's preferred numbers from their update in February, they still plan to cut $400 million over the next three years, and that's coming at a real cost. In October last year, the Border Force commissioner, Michael Outram, admitted to me in Senate estimates that Border Force is stretched. And the result of that is a 20% reduction in the number of maritime surveillance flights and a 12% reduction on the number of days at sea conducting offshore patrols. What has that meant? Boats are coming back and boats are getting through.
Since the election we've had 12 boats on Labor's watch, 300 people. And two of those boats have made it all the way to the Australian mainland undetected and returned again. This is the failure of the Labor Party on border security. We've seen this movie before. It's what happened last time they were in office. They came to power. They watered down our successful Operation Sovereign Borders regime by taking away temporary protection visas and other important measures. And now the boats are returning. And what's worse, we learned today is there is no backup plan.
There's no plan B if Nauru becomes full or if there's any other reason why we can no longer use it as an offshore processing centre. The government has no plan B, they won't reopen Christmas Island. PNG is not available. That means these people have to come to the Australian mainland. And what we're seeing from Clare O'Neil, the Prime Minister and others is continued weakness on national security and continued weakness on border security and it'll be Australians that ultimately pay the price if these people smugglers return to their despicable trade.
Finally, just one comment on the Naval Surface Fleet Review released yesterday. It's become immediately clear in the first 24 hours that this is too little and too late. Just $1.7
billion over the next four years is nowhere near enough, nowhere fast enough for the very serious strategic circumstances we face. If it really is true as the Defence Strategic Review says that we face the most dire strategic circumstances since the end of World War II, then how on earth is $1.7 billion over four years enough to get our surface fleet up to scratch and ready to defend Australia and our interests in a time of crisis? Frankly, it's not good enough. But it's more of what we've come to expect from this government. Weakness on national security, weakness on defence and weakness on borders.
Thank you.
ENDS
