Daryl Melham (Banks, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this matter of public importance. Let’s call a spade a spade. The low-grade politics pursued by the opposition dates back to their loss in the 1993 election. After that loss, bipartisanship on immigration was destroyed in their pursuit to win the 1996 election. You can also date the breaking up of bipartisanship on Indigenous issues to the loss of the 1993 election. The member for Goldstein, Mr Robb, who is in the chamber, understands what I am saying. What we have here is dog whistling going out to the prejudiced and ignorant in the community who are frightened when it comes to immigration and who are frightened when it comes to Aboriginal affairs, when senior figures go out and spread fear and misrepresent the situation.

I am not going to have it said that our policy is an inhumane policy or that the policies of the Howard government on detention were more humane, because that is a rewriting of history by the member for Cook. As a result of the Palmer and Comrie reports that were tabled in 2005, there was a change in the detention regimes. There have been two changes to detention providers since that time. Members of the then backbench—the member for Kooyong, Mr Georgiou; the member for McMillan, Mr Broadbent; the member for Pearce, Judi Moylan; the former member for Cook, Bruce Baird; and the member for Hughes, Danna Vale—all railed against the inhumane detention policy. There was no time limit on the detention of women and children. There was no time limit on the processing of applications. We, as part of our policy prior to the last election, said we would get rid of TPVs. We also put time lines on the processing of applications.

At the moment, we have suspended for three months and six months two classes of visa. That does not breach the Racial Discrimination Act or the convention. It is merely to have a look at the current situation in those countries to see whether the situation has changed and whether people still have a well-founded fear of persecution. Reasonable lawyers will tell you that. We have a humane policy. We are not pariahs in the international community.

The Howard government, in response to Tampa, ambushed the then opposition with less than an hour’s notice on legislation—not because it was humane, not because it was good policy but because they were languishing in the polls and it was a political solution. It was a successful political solution. But where are the Tampa asylum seekers now? Most of them were successfully processed as refugees and relocated. In our current policy, we have wound back the harsher elements of the Howard regime and we do not apologise. We conform to our international obligations and have put more resources towards that.

The worst part of all this is the signal that is going out to the community. The two areas where there should be bipartisan support and where both sides should sit down and talk to one another are Aboriginal issues and immigration. This country was founded on migration. We have taken in refugees and we should be proud of it. These people are now being demonised. They are called illegal when they are not. The term is ‘asylum seekers’. If they are not genuine refugees, they are sent back home.

An alternative government continuing to do this is a disgrace. It is done for one reason only—not because they are more humane or compassionate or because their policy will work; it is a sleazy grab for votes from those sections of the community that respond to this button when it is pushed. We should be trying to educate the community.

When I look at the figures going back 20 years or so there is not much variation. I was a member of the Keating government when we introduced mandatory detention. I stood up and said it was the right policy at the time because you should not release people into the community unless they have had health and security checks and unless they have passed the threshold test of whether they are genuine asylum seekers, genuine refugees.

This debate by the opposition is a disgrace. They have taken the low road and it is all about votes.

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