Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I just want to reassure my colleague the member for Stirling that there is nothing simple about the Migration Amendment (Designated Unauthorised Arrivals) Bill 2006. It quite simply is a very unfair and extreme bill that seeks to radically change the way we process refugees and asylum seekers in this country. It is for this reason that I join my colleagues on this side of the House and members in his party who, thankfully, are on the side of the member for Stirling and who have become very vocal and active in their own opposition to their government’s proposal of this bill. I join with them to oppose this migration bill, which effectively excises the Australian mainland from Australia’s migration zone for people arriving by sea without a visa.

There is much hope from our side, and from all other Australians who are also opposed to this bill, that government senators who are fundamentally opposed to this bill will vote against it in the Senate. But, if this bill is passed, it will see all asylum seekers who arrive by boat removed to a designated third country for processing. Nauru is obviously the country that is particularly favoured by this government. It is quite obvious that the government very much favours the continuation of Nauru as a centre for consolidating its offshore processing regime. People who are found to be refugees will remain offshore until resettlement in a third country is arranged. An interesting aspect of this bill’s intention is that the government intends to exclude Australia as one of those third countries for resettlement. That introduces an unprecedented aspect to our refugee policy. That aspect potentially condemns refugees or people who are seeking asylum to a state of existence akin to a twilight zone.

This bill is an extreme measure. There really is no other way to describe it than as an extreme measure taken by this government at a time when it was thought by many people—by many Australians and indeed by many members—that the government was prepared to restore some common decency to the processing of our unauthorised arrivals. We all remember that last year the government made some significant changes to its immigration policy. Indeed, the Prime Minister hailed those changes as an indication that he was prepared to listen not only to members of his government but also to public opinion. He indicated that he was prepared to listen and to make changes. A lot of those changes were driven by the very good work done by the member for Kooyong, the member for McMillan, the member for Pearce and others in this House and in the Senate. Those changes effectively forced the Prime Minister to make changes to the method and the manner in which the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs dealt with asylum seekers.

The amendments that were introduced last year meant that children in particular would not be placed in detention, that indefinite detention would cease and that case managed mental health would be introduced. More importantly, the Commonwealth Ombudsman became the Immigration Ombudsman and gained independent oversight of people in detention. This was particularly important given the litany of horror stories that were coming to light about the treatment of people in detention.

The bill before us will reverse these important steps taken to restore humanity and decency to detainees and their families, and it will most certainly destroy whatever is left of our reputation in the international community as a welcoming and compassionate country.

The government’s harsh, punitive and expensive detention policies have inflicted tremendous human misery and despair on many vulnerable people. As a result of these government policies, we have subjected many vulnerable people to incarceration in prison-like accommodation for long periods of time and in some cases years. These vulnerable people include children and people who have been suffering mental illness. Also, let us not forget that suffering has been inflicted on some of our own citizens. Let us not forget the experiences of Cornelia Rau and Vivian Solon.

It appeared that this inhumane, punitive and even paranoid treatment by immigration officials, who were of course responding to the requests of government policy, was to be a thing of the past, until the government pulled this latest stunt—and it is a stunt. The excision of the Australian mainland from its own migration zone and the intended removal of Australia as a settlement country are measures that have no precedent. They are so ridiculous and so extreme that you have to wonder just how far this government is prepared to go in the treatment of asylum seekers.

According to the parliamentary secretary who tabled the bill in this place, the government’s intention in presenting this bill is to remove lingering incongruities in the former legislation under which asylum seekers arriving by boat at excised places were subject to offshore processing while those whose boat arrived on the mainland were able to access onshore protection arrangements. The parliamentary secretary identified the arrival of the Papuan refugees as the reason for picking up these incongruities, and I quote him:

The landing on mainland Australia of a group of unauthorised boat arrivals from Indonesia in January 2006 highlighted this incongruous outcome.

We are therefore expected to believe that these amendments serve as some kind of finetuning to improve our immigration policies. That is not the case. This is a serious and reckless change to our immigration policy that will have serious consequences for Australia’s international reputation, so reasonable people would have to ask themselves: what drives this bill? I think the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs herself stated the real motives behind the proposed changes when she said:

Should there be people who would, were this change not made, seek to use the Australian mainland as a means of voicing protests about other countries—

they—

will not be able to do that. We will not allow that to happen.

I believe this is the real intention behind this bill. This government does not want people coming here and voicing concerns about human rights violations, especially when doing so might cause irritations and tensions of a foreign policy nature between Australia and our neighbours.

Refugees tend to flee homelands and regimes usually because there are issues of political or religious persecution, serious human rights violations and oppression in countries where there is no freedom of speech and there is plenty of censorship. Therefore it is not uncommon for refugees to seek refuge and asylum and to also take the opportunity, when they are in a democratic country like Australia, to express themselves, to voice their concerns and to basically tell their story. They do this in the hope that stronger democratic countries like Australia can use their influence to help remedy the situation back home. If we no longer want refugees to do that when they get to this country, because it may not suit our current foreign policy agendas, then what kind of a democracy do we uphold here and what kind of free speech are we as a democratic country advocating?

The government also tells us that this bill—and the member for Stirling made this point—is about border protection. My response to that is that I think it is a bit of a joke. Under this bill, Australia does not really have a border. What is really going on is that the government is trying to cover up for the fact that it was spooked—and we must not forget this, although it did happen some time ago—by the ferocity of Indonesia’s response to the granting of visas to the 43 Papuans and decided that it needed to take action to placate our neighbour. The fact that the government is prepared to sacrifice what few gains were made last year, vis-a-vis the humanitarian changes to our processing of refugees and asylum seekers, shows just how little it valued those changes in the first place.

It is important that Indonesia’s concerns be taken into consideration and, where possible, addressed—no-one would disagree with that. But the government’s response to Indonesia’s reaction, which has resulted in changing our laws, abrogating our responsibilities and sullying our reputation, is fundamentally wrong. I understand, like everybody else does, that we need to have good relations with Indonesia. Those good relations are essential to our overall national interests. But I do not believe, nor do my colleagues believe and nor do many other Australians believe, that we should sacrifice our principles and obligations on human rights in order to pursue so-called Realpolitik policies that in the long run further strip us of our international credibility and indicate our weakness in diplomacy. It is imperative that asylum seeker claims from any country be processed fairly, independently and free from any political or diplomatic interference.

Under this proposed law—and I know this has been said before, but it will be said again and I shall say it again in this House—Indonesia decides who comes to this country and the manner in which they come. This is quite a change from the Prime Minister’s assertions over the past few years that he—or Australia—decides who comes here and on which terms they come. There was no demand from Australians, the Australian public, for this legislation to be introduced—and that is the reality. The only demand for change came from Indonesia. History has taught us that policies of appeasement do not work—and this apparent acquiescence will be no different.

We should not be trying to deal with diplomatic tensions by essentially fiddling with and abdicating responsibility for the formulation of Australian law. Once you open this can of worms, there is no telling where it will end. A number of people and organisations have spoken out quite strongly against this bill. I want to refer to some of the comments that were made by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. In fact, I think good guidance on the appropriateness of this bill can be taken from the UNHCR’s commentaries on this bill.

See this speech in context