Bill Shorten dismisses PM’s comments, saying it’s possible to have strong borders and treat people humanely

Scott Morrison says people smugglers will ‘have a crack’ if Labor is elected

The prime minister, Scott Morrison, has sent out a fresh message on border security, saying “people smugglers know they won’t get through me and Peter Dutton” but would “have a crack” if Bill Shorten became prime minister.

Morrison said the government had “increased the strength, resource and capability again of Operation Sovereign Borders” after the asylum seeker medevac legislation passed parliament this week, in spite of the Coalition’s best efforts to block it.

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Morrison said he had been “forced” to act on Home Affairs advice to reopen the detention facility at Christmas Island to “deal with that decision” on the medevac bill.

“Now, I can’t describe to you the fury that is within me that I have to now go spend money on opening a centre that I didn’t need to open a week ago,” he said.

Advice released by the government said the cost of reopening Christmas Island would be more than $1bn over several years.

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The Labor leader, Bill Shorten, brushed off the prime minister’s attack, telling reporters: “Under a Labor government we’ll have a ring of steel around this country.”

“We will make sure that our ADF, our air assets, sea assets, our Australian Border Force have whatever resources they need to defeat people smugglers,” he said.

“It is possible in this country to have strong borders and the humane treatment of people within our care,” Shorten said.

Shorten said the government was so worried about boats, but “in the last four years alone 64,000 people have arrived by air claiming asylum and many of those claims are found to be unmeritorious”.

“What’s happened is this government has stopped the boats and now they’re catching the plane,” he said.

The Home Affairs Department website shows 27,931 protection visa applications were made last financial year by plane arrivals.