Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to start by commending the contribution made by the member for Pearce on the migration bill. It has certainly been an interesting experience to hear the different speeches delivered from the other side of the parliament on the bill, but I will return to those contributions later. Firstly, this evening, I want to explore a particular topic relating to the Migration Amendment (Abolishing Detention Debt) Bill 2009, which is before the House, and put a little context around it.

I turn to a definition of racism. Racism is a noun and it is defined as: ‘A belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one’s own race is superior and has the right to rule others.’ That is from Dictionary.com. I am sorry that I have not referred to the Oxford or the Macquarie dictionaries. When we look at that definition and apply it to Australia’s history of racism, it provides an exploration of the dynamics of power and ignorance that have so shaped Australia’s history. The fundamental legal concept of modern Australia was based on this definition. Since 1788, there has been the idea of terra nullius. It is a legal concept that was applied in this part of the Commonwealth and is based on some racist assumptions.

I must admit that the Australian Labor Party has its roots in racism. In fact, it was one of the strongest organising forces in the Australian Labor Party. Disparate groups came together to form the Labor Party under the tree of knowledge at Barcaldine, in the suburbs of Sydney or anywhere that racism took place around Australia. For instance, there were elements of an anti-Chinese force in bringing people together to form the proud Australian Labor Party. Obviously this came out of the time when there were anti-Chinese riots and rallies. I read recently that every window of a Chinese business in Brisbane was smashed during some of those rallies in the 1890s. That is the history of the Australian Labor Party. It is not one that I am proud of but one that we must acknowledge in building a stronger party for the future. And we have done that. We have dealt with the ghosts of our past.

If we look at the institution that we are in today, we will see that one of the first things the Commonwealth of Australia did was to pass racist legislation—legislation that would not get off the ground at all in 2009. But 1901 was a different time and there was a different sense of what was right. In the past when I have touched on these topics in speeches, I have had people from the Labor Party say: ‘You can’t say that. You cannot talk about that history of the Australian Labor Party.’ But I always make a point of saying it—not dwelling on it, but acknowledging it—because that is the only way we are ever going to move on from this shameful legacy.

You do not have to look far to find racism, especially in Queensland—the state that I come from. It has probably got one of the worst legacies in terms of racism. There is the Palmer River Goldfield massacres where Chinese people were slaughtered by miners. There is also the treatment of Kanakas and the blackbirding that took place in the sugarcane plantations in Queensland. We can look to a more recent history, say, that of my grandfather’s time during World War II. A lot of American troops were based in Brisbane, particularly in my electorate where there was an airfield base, and there was segregation of the African-American service personnel; they were not allowed to go over the river. We can look at an even more recent time. Just a few weekends ago, on Saturday, 13 June, I was at the Pho Quang Monastery, a Vietnamese establishment in Inala. It is not in my electorate. I told the member for Oxley that it was actually in his electorate, but it is just over the border from mine. It was quite a poignant experience being in Oxley on that day, 13 June, because on 13 June, 11 years ago, 11 members of One Nation were elected to parliament.

I still have the horrific memory on that election night of that failed businesswoman from Ipswich striding through the tally room in that horrific yellow outfit. I remember it well and it still sends a chill up my spine. Even more recently—not 11 years ago but just a few years ago—after the September 11 horror, there was a firebombing of a mosque in my electorate by an idiot.

Obviously, Queensland does not have a particularly proud legacy when it comes to migration and racism but things have changed. In the small country town I grew up in there were not too many people who were not of Anglo-Celtic background. I remember the Yet Foys, who were successful businesspeople, and some other friends of mine, the Longs, who were Aboriginal-Chinese—which is not an uncommon history in country Queensland. It is a story that would break your heart if I told you but I will save that for another day.

That is Queensland’s background but we have moved on and we have changed. I look at the great work of a group in the Labor Party called Labor 4 Refugees in the lead up to the 2004 federal election. I want to particularly acknowledge the work of two young people who taught me so much, Matt Collins and Sarah Abbott. They had the courage of their convictions and tried to move the federal Labor Party and many other people to combat the ignorance that often comes with some of our policies and our ideas.

As a member of parliament from Queensland, I can proudly say that things are turning around from a state that at one time had the lowest percentage intake of refugees in Australia to a state that now has the highest percentage of refugees. We are changing our culture. We are shedding our redneck past. I look at the success stories such as good old white bread Toowoomba—with respect to the member for Groom—embracing a lot of Sudanese refugees. Places like Gatton that do not have a particularly multicultural past except for maybe Irish, Welsh, Scottish and English are now embracing people from all around the world. In my electorate one in three people are born overseas. So things are changing. We are able to shed our history and become a much more inclusive society.

I turn to address a couple of myths that were already largely rebutted by the member for Pearce but I will revisit some of those myths for the benefit of the people of my electorate. These are myths that were unfortunately raised again in this debate by people in that side of the parliament. The member for O’Connor used the term ‘queue jumpers’ again and again in his speech. I am not too sure who makes up his constituency or what he thinks they need to hear. He is obviously a man of convictions but I sometimes wonder where those convictions are spread. As the member for Pearce stated, there is no orderly place to queue in some of the hellholes around the world that attract the attention of the UNHCR or which are so disorganised that you cannot even get the UNHCR in there to talk about forming a queue.

That term is still out in the common parlance but anyone who understands world affairs would know that there is no queue. As the member for Pearce said, they are not illegal refugees—they are refugees. If we are going to talk about people that are illegal obviously we would be talking about the vast majority of people in Australia who overstay their welcome. They do not come on boats. They come on planes and they stay in hotels. And if we want to be accurate, they normally come from the United Kingdom or the United States—but obviously that is not what people are talking about around the barbeques, especially if a fear campaign starts.

Of those people—the queue jumpers or illegal refugees or whatever you call them—how many do we end up sending home? Is it 100 per cent of them? Is it 50 or 20 per cent? No. It is more like one per cent at best—not even one per cent. Most of them are found to be genuine and have come from places of horror and anguish. A country as lucky as Australia does have the heart and can normally find a place for them at the table. They are some of the myths I wanted to dispel.

I also want dispel another myth that has not really got a full head of steam but I want to touch on it now—maybe I am starting this myth right here, right now. The myth is that this legislation is part of a Welsh conspiracy, because there is a suggestion that the Welsh are taking over the Commonwealth government. I do not know Prime Minister Rudd’s ancestry and whether there is any Welsh blood there but certainly Julia Gillard is a well-known Welsh immigrant. The next highest person in the government would be Chris Evans—also a Welsh immigrant. Number four would be Stephen Conroy. He is Irish but I have it on good authority that nine months before he was born his parents were on holiday in Wales. So I did want to knock that Welsh conspiracy theory on the head as well—the suggestion that this legislation is all about making sure more Welsh people can come here. I stress for any Welsh people listening that I am joking.

This legislation before the House is good commonsense legislation. It is a good commonsense approach to a furphy that is out there. It is about ending this facade where we make people that have landed on our shores pay for the daily maintenance for each day of that non-citizens detention and also for the cost of their transport. As speakers before me stated, this does not apply to everyone. If we are talking about illegal fishers or people smugglers this is not legislation that applies to them. We can look at the facts to see why this commonsense legislation is so important.

During 2006-07 and 2007-08 the immigration detention debt raised was $54.3 million. That is obviously quite a significant amount of money. In tough economic times $54.3 million is something that I am sure the Treasurer would appreciate. How much of that was actually paid back by these people who we slap the debt on? About $1.8 million or 3.3 per cent was actually recovered. Unsurprisingly, $48.2 million was written off by the department because it was uneconomical to pursue these amounts of money, and $4 million of that was waived.

I take the member for Pearce’s point that not everyone knows about that particular avenue. For the refugees I see in my electorate, irrespective of how they got there, the first thing they want to do is get work, get a roof over their heads and give their kids an opportunity in life that maybe they did not have. That is why this legislation is such common sense. I see that the cost of administering these detention debts was approximately $709,000. In terms of the use of taxpayer dollars, pursuing this facade for the sake of a political purpose, which is really what this was all about, is ludicrous—bad politics, bad government. That is why I am proud to speak on this legislation.

I am proud to have spoken after the member for Pearce and the member for Kooyong. I did not actually hear the member for McMillan; I am not sure if he had spoken previously.

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