Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I also rise to speak in opposition to the Migration Amendment (Regaining Control Over Australia’s Protection Obligations) Bill 2013. This bill lacks fairness, as previous speakers have highlighted. It smacks of political opportunism and meanness. I seek today to explain in a little bit more detail why I believe this to be the case.

The history of this bill has been outlined. It was identified by the previous government that there was a need for complementary protection visas, and that is why they were introduced. There is still a need today. We have not woken up and discovered that around the world there are no individuals in significant harm. And the concept of significant harm is critical to this bill and critical to the legislation around complementary protection visas.

Complementary protection is the term used to describe a category of protection for people who are not seen to be refugees as defined by the refugee convention but who, if returned to their home country, are at real risk of significant harm. It may shock people in this country—not necessarily in this chamber but in the community—that there are people who do face significant harm, including the death penalty, torture, deprivation of life, cruel and inhuman treatment or punishment, and degrading treatment and punishment, such as mercy or honour killings and forced marriages. As a young woman in this parliament—I am 33—it is hard to believe that there are women much younger than me, or young girls in fact, who every year are faced with forced marriages. According to Human Rights Watch, 14 million girls are married worldwide each year, some as young as eight or nine—forced into these arrangements.

And it does not appear just in the countries we are currently taking refugees and asylum seekers from. Entire continents have been listed as countries where this practice occurs: Africa, Asia, the Middle East. We are talking about a significant proportion of the world's population. Those families, those girls, may seek complementary protection. And as a first-world country, as a country that prides itself on fairness and humanitarianism and compassion, we should continue to give these individuals the opportunity to ask for, to seek, to apply for complementary protection. Mercy killings and honour killings, again, would seem quite foreign to families here in Australia. It would be quite foreign to them to even think of placing their loved ones, their daughters, their sisters, in this situation. Yet all over the world thousands of women are murdered by family members each year in the name of honour. Most of these, again, occur in countries where women are seen as a vessel of family reputation. An act that we might see as quite normal—a young woman falling in love, but not with a boyfriend of her family's choice—and that in the Western World is written about in novels and talked about as the great love story is in other countries not seen that way; it is seen as women betraying their families and therefore maybe being subject to honour killings. Reports submitted to the UN Commission on Human Rights show that honour killings have occurred in Bangladesh, Great Britain, Brazil, Ecuador, Egypt, India, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Pakistan, Morocco, Sweden, Turkey and Uganda. This list of reports does not include countries that refuse to submit to the UN. So, again, in a significant proportion of the world's population, young women could be subject to honour killings. They may not necessarily be categorised as refugees under the refugee convention, but they are people who would otherwise fall through the net. That is why we must show compassion. That is why we must have this form of complementary protection.

The history of why it was introduced has also been highlighted in this debate. It was not just done on a whim. There were decades of ministerial review. We probably reviewed this issue for too long. I think that is the thing that has also been overlooked. It took a long time for this country to introduce the complementary protection legislation. And it was introduced in response to a report that recommended increased accountability and integrity in the system that was independent and transparent—that the politics and politicians be taken out of it. And because it was done in a way to catch those one or two falling through the net, fewer than 100 of these complementary protection visas have actually been granted since their introduction. We heard earlier that in fact it is only 57. It is catching those one or two who would otherwise be returned to their home country and face significant harm.

Complementary protection visas, as I have stated, were designed to catch those one or two—people perhaps like ourselves. I am a young woman when it comes to the parliament. I am 33, and I have put my hand up to run for parliament. In other countries that may be seen to be a challenge to the state, a challenge to authority. Yet we seek to deny these people who might just be doing what we are doing. They might just be standing up in their country and speaking up for their values. They might just be saying, 'I want to live the life that others in other parts of the world live', 'I want to be openly gay', I want to be able to have a boyfriend before marriage' or 'I want to be able to refuse a marriage'. Values that we hold very dear in this country are being denied, and that is why there was the need to introduce complementary protection visas.

This bill is an example of how the major political parties differ on this complex issue of asylum seekers. This bill demonstrates the government's lack of compassion and respect for human life. Just the name of the bill—'Regaining Control Over Australia's Protection Obligations'—demonstrates for me the delusional reality that the minister lives within—or political spin at its most extreme. Regain control from whom—our public servants? The independent impartial review board? The whole concept of this term—regain control over our obligations—is about a sound bite, it is about demonstrating to the Australian people and to the media this pretence that this country is under invasion, when clearly we are not. This bill demonstrates the government's obsession with looking tough to the public and the pretence that we are at war. Again, I ask: who are we at war with? Why this combative language that has come into the debate around asylum seekers? It is as though we have, in our government and in the minister, a group of little boys with their toy soldiers, playing war games and in charge of immigration. It is not the compassion that we seek from our government. It is not the fairness that we seek from our government. In the absence of having a real enemy of the state, it appears that the government has just made up an enemy.

Combative language like 'regaining control' and 'Operation Sovereign Borders' suggests our nation is under attack, but from whom? Is it asylum seekers or refugees—people fleeing from persecution and seeking asylum? Is it people like the refugees who have made parts of my electorate of Bendigo their home, such as the young Karen woman from my electorate who is a cleaner in the Baptist Church? Today she is 26, and she spent the first 20 years of her life in a camp on the Thai-Burma border. Recently she celebrated her sixth freedom birthday. Are these the people that we are at war with? Are these the people we need to protect our borders from? The Karen community, an ethnic minority within Burma, and the country—as many know—have been at war since 1949. The destruction of villages, the killing and the rape, the forced labour and the landmines have forced them into these camps. Today we hear that the situation in this country is improving. But there is a long way to go before we have reconciliation and we have people no longer seeking asylum from this country.

Another group of refugees have made Castlemaine part of their home. Deng is a Sudanese refugee and today lives in Castlemaine and works at KR meatworks. He, like a hundred other Sudanese men and women, has found work and employment. Again, are these the people we need to secure our borders from: people seeking asylum who are running from persecution in their own country, whether they be activists, political leaders or people just wanting their families to live freely? This is, again, why the combative language in this debate needs to be removed. We need to return to a debate around compassion and around respect for human life.

The Labor Party does hold a very different view. Labor further recognises that those who decide to leave their country in perilous circumstances have the right, under the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, to have compassion if they do not fit into a significant category like the complementary protection visa system. Labor will work with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and countries of the region to expedite claims for refugee status by asylum seekers in the region to eliminate any pull factors that may exist. Labor believes in treating people seeking asylum or protection with dignity and compassion in accordance with our international obligations and core Australian principles of fairness and humanity. Australia should comply with all other protections and obligations that we have voluntarily assumed in signing the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and other relevant international instruments and actively engage with the work of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and other relevant international and regional agencies. Labor believes Australia should have a generous humanitarian program that includes providing appropriate support, travel and resettlement for refugees and others requiring protection, and contribute to the international aid efforts alleviating pressing humanitarian needs of displaced persons. Labor recognises that, under the refugee convention, asylum seekers have a right to seek protection and asylum. These lines are from the ALP national platform, where members get together every term to debate and discuss this issue. Within our side we do acknowledge that there needs to be compassion, that there needs to be debate. We need to restore this debate to one around human life, around seeking asylum and around recognising that we are a global citizen.

In conclusion, as I stated at the beginning, it is time that we saw principled leadership from this government and not point-scoring and jockeying for political advantage. It is time that we removed the sound bites from legislation and started to focus on what really is needed. As I stated earlier, fewer than 100 people have successfully been provided with a complementary protection visa. These visas were designed to catch those people who were falling through the net, those people who would otherwise face significant harm if returned to their country of origin. The proposal under this bill contradicts, as we have said, the years that have been spent debating finding a way to support those who would otherwise be in significant harm if they were returned home. I believe that it is dangerous for this parliament to allow decisions that require mature, passionate consideration to be made by a single person—a minister. He is a minister who quite frequently stands up in public and demonises asylum seekers. He is a minister who, by his very nature in designing these bills, uses combative language. There is a reason why the previous government introduced an independent, impartial review panel to deal with these matters. It is to take the politicians out of it and to ensure that every decision that is made in relation to complementary protection visas is a fair decision. I urge the House to oppose this bill.

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