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People smuggling is a dishonourable trade based on lies, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has told parliament.
Asked by Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull if he had been advised about people smugglers using Labor's softening of border protection laws to market their services, Mr Rudd said: 'I'm unaware of such advice.'
He went on to tell question time on Monday: 'Whether that information is accurate or not, that's the sort of disinformation in which people smugglers would engage.'
'They represent a dishonourable profession which trades in lies.'
'It would not surprise me what people smugglers said to anyone at any time in any place in order to increase their trade.'
The federal government abolished the Pacific Solution in August 2008, in which asylum seekers were processed on Manus Island, in Papua New Guinea, and on the small nation of Nauru.
