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Strong international border protection is the key to a prosperous and multicultural Australia, the nation's Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said on Friday.
Penning a comment piece for Fairfax Media publications ahead of the July 2 federal election, Turnbull said Australia's multicultural and migration success is a testament to a strong immigration policy, and warned the Australian public that a Labor government would put Australia's border protection at risk.
The prime minister said Opposition Leader Bill Shorten was not committed to upholding "strong borders" and said that Labor had to "face the natural consequences of the soft border policies they propose."
"Barely a day goes past when I don't celebrate that we are the most successful and harmonious multicultural nation in the world. But we cannot be under any illusions about what our multicultural success is built upon," Turnbull wrote on Friday.
"Strong borders are the foundation of our high-immigration multicultural success. This is not a hypothetical proposition.
"We've seen elsewhere what happens when nations lose control of their borders and fail to invest in the integration of migrants who arrive."
Turnbull said the Labor policy of open borders only worked in the favor of illegal boat owner, and put the lives of tens of thousands of potential migrants at risk when they "entrust their lives in people smugglers".
"There is nothing generous about policies that lead families to drown at sea. There is nothing humane about gestures that lead to young women, men and their children in detention," Turnbull said.
The government has maintained a strong stance on border protection; earlier this year Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said strong borders were critical to national security, especially in a time when terror attacks are occurring more often.
"I very strongly believe that the threat coming across our borders, when you look at what's happened in Brussels and Paris, the United States, the United Kingdom and elsewhere, this is a bigger issue at this election than it has ever been," Dutton said.
Australians head to the polls on July 2.
(APD)
