Peter Dutton accuses Bill Shorten of offering ‘backdoor’ entry to Australia

PETER Dutton has accused Labor of offering an opportunity for people smugglers to market a “backdoor” entry to Australia through New Zealand.

A BITTER debate between the Turnbull government and Labor over border protection is set to intensify after Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton accused Bill Shorten of offering an opportunity for criminal people smugglers to market a “backdoor” entry to Australia through New Zealand.

Peter Dutton accused Bill Shorten of offering a “backdoor” entry to Australia. Picture: AAP Image/Lukas Coch

Hours after Operation Sovereign Borders chief Stephen Osborne raised “concerns” if a Labor government changed current policy, Mr Dutton told The Daily Telegraph that Mr Shorten would give people smugglers “basically a green light”.

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“The fact is that (people smugglers) are marketing New Zealand, people are believing New Zealand because they’ve heard Bill Shorten talk about New Zealand, and we need to call him out,” Mr Dutton told the Miranda Live radio show.

“People smugglers are out there marketing at the moment saying there will be a change of government in Australia, pay your money and you’ll get to Australia under a Labor government.”

His comments follow the interception of a modified tanker last week carrying 131 Sri Lankans bound for Australia or New Zealand by Malaysian authorities as part of an investigation into a criminal people-smuggling syndicate.

But Labor’s immigration spokesman Shayne Neumann hit back, and said it was Mr Dutton “playing into the hands of the people smugglers and criminal syndicates … when he lies about Labor’s strong border protection policies”.

“Peter Dutton continues to lie to the Australian people by saying it’s too hard to negotiate arrangements with New Zealand because of special travel arrangements between our two countries,” he said.

Labor hit back at Dutton’s claims. Picture: AAP Image/Andy Brownbill

“Dutton knows that as Minister he can prevent any person from any other nation from travelling to, or remove them from, Australia based on character grounds in the Migration Act which contains specific provisions related to people smuggling.”

Mr Dutton told Miranda Live that a move to send arrivals by boat to New Zealand was “essentially like saying we’ll just send people to Sydney or Melbourne because people know New Zealand is a back doorway into our country”.

“Labor doesn’t get this yet, but it’s the case that New Zealand is the only country in the world you can hop on a plane, and come to Australia and get a visa on arrival,” he said.

“If you are coming from the United States, the UK, Canada, wherever it might be in the world, you need to arrange a visa before you hop on a plane and travel to our country.

“NZ is different to that … this is the problem that Bill Shorten’s got.

“The left of his party is going feral, he’s got half of his Caucus that are against Operation Sovereign Borders and I don’t think Bill Shorten could explain to people how he would keep the boats stopped if he was elected at the next federal election.”

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull did not rule out resettlements in New Zealand, which has a standing offer of accepting refugees from Australia, when asked in November last year.

Air Vice-Marshall Osborne, appearing with Mr Dutton earlier today, said Operation Sovereign Borders “has been very successful, it is almost four years without a venture”.

“It is built on a very particular structure and, if we make any changes to that structure, I would have some concerns, and we will leave it at that,” he said.

Originally published as Peter Dutton accuses Bill Shorten of offering ‘backdoor’ entry to Australia