Senator BRANDIS (Queensland—Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate, Vice-President of the Executive Council, Minister for Arts and Attorney-General) (14:01): Thank you very much indeed, Senator Wong, for that question. Senator Wong, we do not comment on operational matters, as you know. In fact, Senator Wong, evidently you are not familiar with Mr Shorten's train wreck of a press conference about 45 minutes ago, when he was asked this very question. He was asked this very question whether the Labor Party, when it was in government, paid people smugglers. Do you know what Mr Shorten had to say? Mr Shorten said, 'Well, we don't comment on operational matters.' So, Senator Wong, I suggest that the next time you prepare for question time, you have a glance at what your leader has said in the hour before question time. Of course, we know that the Labor Party paid money to people smugglers. We know $500 million worth of money went into the coffers of people smugglers, who charged a fee of approximately $10,000 per passage to 50,000 illegal entrants into Australia— The PRESIDENT: Pause the clock! Order, Minister! Senator Moore: Mr President, I raise a point of order on direct relevance to the question that was asked, which was about the foreign minister's response rather than a history lesson about what they believe. The PRESIDENT: Senator Moore, in relation to the point of order, Senator Brandis did answer the question first-up, indicating that he would not be commenting on operational matters. And as has been the tradition and convention in this chamber for decades, ministers can always enhance their answers once they have answered the substantive question. Senator BRANDIS: So we know that people smugglers in Indonesia were enriched during the period of the Labor government to the tune of tens of millions of dollars, because we know there were approximately 50,000 illegal entrants to Australia, whose average fee, as we also know, was US$10,000. That is the extent to which people smugglers were enriched during the period of the Labor government. But because the Abbott government has stopped the boats, stopped the drownings, we have also stopped the people smugglers.