Simon Crean (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government) Share this | Hansard source

I rise in this debate to support the Oakeshott bill and argue against the amendments. I do so as minister for territories. Having visited Christmas Island, I know the impact that the tragedy that was so movingly spoken to by the member for Stirling earlier today has affected that community. There is a need for us to understand their circumstances but most of all to understand that the tragedy of the circumstances that have happened over the last week requires this parliament to take action. It requires this parliament to understand the importance of getting a bipartisan solution on this, because that is the only way this will go through this parliament. Let me go to the amendment first. The requirement for the coalition that the country receiving be a signatory to the convention has never been a consistent view of the Liberal Party—never. It was not a requirement when, as part of the Pacific Solution, Nauru was used by the Howard government. I remember, as leader of the Labor Party when we hosted CHOGM in this country, I urged to the Prime Minister of the day to be arguing signatories at the CHOGM meeting, because many of the countries in the pipeline of the refugee movement were in fact Commonwealth countries. I argued to the Prime Minister that he should take this issue to CHOGM to try to underpin a regional solution based around the convention. He rejected it. He said it was not necessary.

As the argument that signatories to the treaty somehow guarantees human rights, I think the member for Melbourne Ports made this point before: it does not. Some of the signatories to the refugee treaty are Afghanistan, Bolivia, Botswana, Colombia, Mozambique, Serbia, Somalia and Uganda. Does anyone seriously over there suggest that these people sent to those countries would have their human rights protected?

We do hold strongly to the position of the importance of the human rights issue, and that is why in terms of the Malaysia solution, even though it was a country that was not signatory to the treaty, we bent over backwards to get treaty-like recognition—not signatories to the treaty but nevertheless the guarantee. This is what the UNHCR had to say about the solution:

The Arrangement and its implementing guidelines contain important protection safeguards, including respect for the principle of non-refoulement; the right to asylum; the principle of family unity and best interests of the child; humane reception conditions including protection against arbitrary detention; lawful status to remain in Malaysia until a durable solution is found; ...

The critical test of this Arrangement will now be in its implementation ...

In other words, the UNHCR was saying to this parliament, 'We are prepared to give it a go.' The problem with this parliament is that those who sit opposite are not prepared to give it a go. The very thing they say their amendment will protect, on all the evidence, is not consistent with anything the Liberal Party has ever stood for on this issue, it does not guarantee it even if it does happen, and we have bent over backwards in terms of the Malaysian solution to ensure that those human rights issues are indeed protected.

I also want to take issue with the members for Berowra and Goldstein in terms of our position in the Tampa circumstance. It was not true that we insisted just on the human rights dimension before we agreed to the amendment. In fact, the Leader of the Opposition, Kim Beazley, came into this parliament at question time that day and said, 'We support the government's action,' in terms of the military having been sent in. The problem is that that action was not legal. The problem was that the government of the day had to legislate to make it legal and in going to the exercise of making it legal they were prepared to obliterate much of Australian protection. For example, a provision in the early bill was that the law overrides all other laws in operation in the Commonwealth. It excluded the operation of the legislation from the jurisdiction of the High Court. That is what we objected to, and that is why you had to bring in a second bill, which we supported. But that in no way introduced the Pacific Solution. It was to cover your rush to action, it was the illegal circumstances of it and the Pacific Solution, as you know, we had many disagreements with. (Time expired)

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