Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The path I take today I did not choose. This path chose me. I cannot simply walk away from the agreement reached and legislated nearly 12 months ago. The founder of the Liberal Party, Sir Robert Menzies, built the party on a foundation of the plural traditions of free thought and individual conscience. Free thought and individual conscience are not things to be used frivolously, nor taken lightly, but are freedoms that are embodied in the traditions of our party.

The decision I have taken to oppose this legislation, the decision to follow my conscience and vote for the first time, and I hope the last time, against the government of which I was elected as a member, is made because it is in the long-term national interest of this the great south land to continue to be a compassionate protector of the rights of refugees irrespective of the importance of a close relationship between Australia and one of our neighbours.

There is no doubt that the changes introduced in the Migration Amendment (Designated Unauthorised Arrivals) Bill 2006 are being made as a reaction by the Australian government to Indonesian concerns about the correct and honourable decision by Australia to grant asylum to 43 refugees from West Papua. In his second reading speech, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs offered no reason for the changes the legislation seeks to make beyond an assertion that:

It seems incongruous that an unauthorised boat arrival at an excised offshore place is subject to offshore processing arrangements, while an unauthorised boat arrival travelling, in some cases, only a few kilometres further to the Australian mainland is able to access the onshore protection arrangements ...

Yet the only actual example of this so-called incongruity he could find was ‘the landing on mainland Australia of a group of unauthorised boat arrivals from Indonesia in January 2006’. The parliamentary secretary’s speech highlighted not the incongruous outcome he spoke of but the sacrifice of what is right and what is in Australia’s national interest.

I recognise the Indonesian government’s concerns. I assure them that as a partner in our region we honour and respect our neighbours. We support our neighbours in times of trouble. We may not always agree with their laws, but we do respect their right to enact their laws. We desire good relations. We do not question their sovereignty in any province or region.

The Howard government has demonstrated a proactive and decisive approach to the challenge of border protection and national security. Since the tragic episodes in 2001 that changed the way we look at the world, the government has implemented more than 100 measures and injected funding in excess of $6.7 billion to fight terrorism and to improve national security. The 2006 budget builds further in this direction by providing over $1.2 billion to fund additional national security related measures. In total, the Howard government has now committed $8.1 billion in new spending on national security since 2001-02. Included in these important budget measures is $20.2 million over the next four years to support the delivery, management and administration of the changes made last year to the Migration Act 1958 following the detention arrangements agreement. This comes on top of the $9.3 million provided in 2005-06 to enable the detention of families with children to take place in the community and the introduction of processing time limits on the determination of primary protection visas.

I cannot fathom why we would spend over $30 million implementing these measures only to turn around and abrogate them. We cannot let our high regard for Indonesia override our obligations under the Refugee Convention. As a signatory to that convention, we are charged with determining whether people who arrive on our shores have a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion and, among other things, are not war criminals or people who have committed serious, non-political crimes. That is the independent process we followed with a group of a unauthorised boat arrivals from Indonesia in January 2006. It was determined that they did have a well-founded fear of being persecuted and were thus treated as refugees and given visas to stay in Australia. That was as it should be. Australia should not bow to influences that would fundamentally change our laws or the way we process asylum seekers.

Perhaps if there was any incongruity in Australia’s position, it comes from the decision in 2001 to create an excised offshore place subject to offshore processing arrangements. That decision was made as part of the government’s complete and determined approach to border protection to stop trafficking by criminal people-smugglers, which was reaching considerable proportions. It has been an effective deterrent. In 1998-99 there were 921 onshore boat arrivals and the number jumped to 4,175 in 1999-2000. In the following year there were 4,137 arrivals before a decline became evident in 2001-02 with 1,277 arrivals. In 2002-03 there were no arrivals whatsoever. In 2003-04 there were 53 arrivals, which was still lower than all the recorded numbers throughout the 1980s and 1990s. In 2005 four men, one woman and two children arrived by boat in Australian waters on the Kimberley coast. It is therefore wrong to say that the current legislative and cooperative measures in place have not been effective in protecting our borders. The measures have worked, and for that this government can take great credit.

The Howard government should be further praised for the flexibility it showed in amending the Migration Act to deal more compassionately with asylum seekers in the light of the fact that the system was working. The Prime Minister said of the changes of that time:

The broad framework of the government’s approach is unaltered. There can, however, be significant improvement, which will mean that current policy is administered with greater flexibility, fairness and above all, in a timely manner.

This legislation of last year came out of protracted and difficult negotiations. The agreement was then put in writing, announced by the Prime Minister, cleared and accepted by the party room, confirmed in two pieces of legislation before the parliament and then widely embraced by the Australian community. The package included four key elements. It provided for new arrangements to move families with children out of detention into the community. It set a time limit of three months for primary protection visa decision making, it allowed for review by the Refugee Review Tribunal and it provided for oversight by the Commonwealth Ombudsman.

Importantly, the legislation required the minister to table in the parliament any assessments or recommendations from the Ombudsman. These reforms have been highly successful and the system is more flexible, fair and timely. Not only did they work, but they did so whilst ensuring we met our humanitarian obligations as a signatory to international conventions and as a compassionate nation. How could you possibly consider that the same outcome could be achieved by sending asylum seekers to Nauru? Australia has proved that strong border protection and human rights are not incompatible. In essence, they seek to assure the same values: that the innocent will be defended and that those who seek to do harm will be deterred. It is the very success of the existing measures that makes this proposed legislation so disappointing.

This bill excises the whole of Australia from the migration zone. In doing so, it also excises the safeguards and rule of law our judicial system provides under our statutes and regulations. Under this bill, the agreement reached last year would be made redundant. The bill amends the current act to allow a DIMA officer to take a designated unauthorised arrival to a ‘declared country’. Because Nauru and Papua New Guinea are not bound by the Migration Act 1958, the rule requiring that a determination of protection visa applications for detained asylum seekers occur within 90 days would not apply. Even an in principle attempt to construct a non-enforceable time limit would not be legally binding, as is the case in Australia. Provision for judicial oversight and transparent scrutiny by requiring reports from DIMA to the Commonwealth Ombudsman on persons being held in detention for more than two years would be irrelevant in Nauru. A private contracting firm would organise the accommodation on Nauru and PNG. But would the Nauruan government, which is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention, oversee asylum seekers’ welfare, or would that responsibility fall to Australian officers operating under UNHCR guidelines and outside the reach of our legal system?

If the bill is passed, asylum seekers processed offshore will not have access to independent review by the Refugee Review Tribunal, or judicial review under Australian law. This bill has been roundly criticised by two agencies that deal with human rights and refugees. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission both made submissions opposing the legislation to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee inquiry. That committee, in its report tabled in June this year, made the primary recommendation that the bill should not proceed. In the event the bill did proceed, the committee recommended a long list of qualifications that would have the same effect. The former senator, vice president and President of the United States, Lyndon Johnson, once said:

You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered.

I believe there is a potential for this bill to cause serious harm to the progress we have made on this issue as a nation and to the vulnerable people it would affect. I will be voting against these amendments knowing that there are some in my party who do not agree with the ‘plural tradition’ of the Liberal Party and its principles of free thought and individual conscience. Some warn that any dissent is a form of political death. I am no stranger to defeat. I have suffered defeat four times, but I have also been elected to this House three times. It is not the office of the federal member that is important; it is what you do when in office. I take comfort in the words of Dr Martin Luther King:

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

This bill is an issue of challenge and controversy. I had a letter recently from, Di Potter, a constituent in McMillan, expressing her anguish at this bill. She said:

I thought my letter writing days were over—

I, too, thought her letter-writing days on this issue were over; finished. I note her broken-hearted response to the form of words used to describe asylum seekers in the legislation. I note her concern that this means Australia is no longer a place of refuge.

The Australia I know is a place where dreams come true, where the impossible becomes the possible and the probable becomes the inevitable. It is where people find a sense of belonging and it is a place of hope for generations of new immigrants. If I am to die politically because of my stance on this bill, it is better to die on my feet than to live on my knees.

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