Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

As made clear before, the Greens have a fundamental opposition to this bill. Nothing that has been said during the course of this debate has changed that. We will not be supporting this bill whether or not it is amended. On the topic of this amendment specifically, the Greens take the view that the principles of the refugee convention ought to be paramount. That is how we guide our approach to refugee policy and our approach to this bill.

Underpinning the principle of the refugee convention is that when someone lands on your doorstep seeking assistance, you do not ship them off to a third country. That is where this amendment has an internal inconsistency. On the one hand it purports to promote the benefits of the refugee convention yet on the other it undermines the fundamental principle. It is especially the case in our region where we are the most wealthy and developed country when one looks around our immediate neighbours and looks at the places that these boats are coming from. For us to say that although other countries may have, in good faith and because they want to improve their standards, signed the refugee convention that it is legitimate for us to take someone, turn them around and send them back to countries that have far less capacity to deal with this issue than us is fundamentally inconsistent.

If it is the case that this bill can be limited by time so that it falls dead at some time then that is something we will look at. But this amendment as it stands is not one that upholds the principles of the refugee convention.

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