My fellow Canberrans:

I stand before you today with a heavy heart and a steely determination. It is now abundantly clear that we must take drastic and definitive steps to secure our borders and defeat the threat we face.

There is simply too much at stake for us to do anything less.

For decades now, we Canberrans have been swamped with unwelcome visitors. The conniving UEAs (unfortunately elected arrivals) have taken advantage of our generous spirit. They will stop at nothing to come here: demonising and imprisoning refugees, bribing third world countries to build offshore hellholes, trampling on press freedom, discrediting human rights organisations, capitalising on voters’ xenophobic fears, commissioning propaganda, bleating three word slogans and even kissing unwilling babies.

Who knows how far they’re prepared to go? As I understand it, some of them are more than willing to throw all their principles overboard for the sake of success.

These scheming “pollies” covet our superior way of life – our roundabouts, colourful science museums and taxpayer-funded parliamentary pensions – and they employ nefarious tactics to gain passage to our shores. They come over here with their vested interests and their blue ties and do nothing but live off the public teat. They don’t assimilate, instead preferring to form ghettos made up of lodges and investment properties. It’s well known they’re a potential danger to the community: they’re more likely to commit crimes than people seeking asylum living on bridging visas, for example.

Furthermore, once here, blessed with all the opportunities that the great city of Canberra affords them, they continue with their wicked ways to ensure their TEPs (temporary electoral periods) are renewed. They blatantly lie about the conditions in the detention gulags, create legal fictions to shirk our humanitarian obligations and actively try to stop medical professionals from speaking out about the sexual abuse of vulnerable people in our care. In the interest of holding on to their precious votes, they staunchly defend such practices, even when those practices result in innocent people setting themselves on fire in desperation.

Quite simply, enough is enough. Today my government is announcing a new policy that will once and for all put an end to this armada of desperate people breaching our sovereignty by objectionable means.

From today, ANY politician who continues to support the policy of offshore detention of refugees will not receive a single vote from the Australian public. Any person running for federal public office who advocates for the cruel and unnecessary status quo will NOT be resettled in Canberra. They will NEVER be resettled in Canberra. No way. Nope, nope, nope.

By dismantling the evil vote smugglers’ business model, we are sending a very clear message that the nation’s capital is not a soft target. We are taking the sugar off the table and we are saying that if you want to come here and govern the country, by Jove you’d better not do it by manipulating the public’s fears and by appealing to the worst elements of our nature.

Of course, some may question our resolve in this endeavour and will try to come here anyway. I repeat: such candidates will NOT receive ANY support from voters and will therefore be immediately turned back. If necessary, some may have to be detained in political limbo until they can be successfully resettled in another, lesser city, such as Newcastle or Devonport, where they can try to begin new lives as business consultants or second-hand car dealers.

This will no doubt be far from ideal for these people, but these are the policy settings we need to address this crisis.

Now some may say that this policy, this Anywhere But Canberra Solution, is too harsh. Yes, it is a harsh policy, there’s no doubt about that. But as a strong leader and a devout Christian man, I know this is what must be done. Jesus knew there was a place for everything and it’s not necessarily everyone’s place to come to Canberra.

We cannot afford to be misty-eyed about this. If we wish to be able to look ourselves in the mirror, get a decent night’s sleep and save our international reputation, these steps must be taken. If we are to save lives in the Australian immigration detention system we may have to sacrifice the political lives of some pollies, that’s just the brutal truth we face. Our predecessors’ open borders policy, which allowed the likes of John Howard, Philip Ruddock, Bronwyn Bishop, Tony Abbott, Jacqui Lambie and Richard Marles into our city, cannot stand.

My government and I are dedicated to seeing this policy through at any cost. We are a welcoming city, a generous city. But we will decide who comes to our federal parliament and the circumstances in which they come.

We will Stop The Votes.

I won’t be taking any questions on this. Thank you.