Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

We understand that this is an urgent matter and that the government is seeking for it to be dealt with before the parliament rises for the winter break. We note the guarantee from the government that these amendments in the Migration Amendment (Regional Processing Arrangements) Bill solely go to enabling payments and enabling the fact of regional processing, and that the legislation does not change or in any way expand the current situation in regional offshore processing. Labor have been promised that this amendment bill does not empower new conduct and that nothing here is the basis for new action.

We should record that we are underwhelmed by this request for urgent action at one minute to midnight. Surely such important proposals and their timing can be allowed greater periods of preparation and debate. We flag that we will ask questions in the consideration-in-detail stage in the Senate to ensure the legislation is in fact what we have been promised.

But this legislation goes to, I think, deeper issues in the nation. Trust is in short supply in the 44th Parliament. Every question time, the government regularly attacks our patriotism, our love of this nation, our good faith and our sincerity on these important matters. But it is a very big wheel that does not turn, and sometimes in life the very people you attack are the very people you need to turn to. This is one of those times.

Labor will be supporting this legislation because it is our policy. Our policy is based on fundamental principles. How do we best ensure safety at sea? How do we stop people smugglers preying on the desperation of the persecuted, the vulnerable and the dispossessed? How do we make sure that genuine refugees get that second chance and that those who are not genuine are sent home? How do we ensure that Australian Navy and Customs officials never ever again face the grim task of pulling bodies from the water off Christmas Island?

I am sure that I speak for all of us in this place when I say that the devastating loss of life—the drownings, the perishing of vulnerable people, of children—is something that we cannot in good conscience ever accept. It is human tragedy we must do everything in our power to prevent. Labor stands resolutely to make sure that the dangerous sea voyage from Java to Christmas Island remains closed.

As I have said before, Labor learnt lessons from its time in government. At the end of the civil war in Sri Lanka, the movement of refugees in our region changed fundamentally and immediately. Australia was slow to respond and to change our approach. The consequences are well known; no-one supports them—no-one. Today, we support this legislation, which is consistent with the approach that we took in government, consistent with our policy and entirely consistent with the regional agreement that Labor settled in 2013.

So we come to this position today not, as some do, out of fear and not, as some do, in an attempt to pander to the worst instincts or the base motives of those who have never learned to accept, appreciate and value the reality of modern multicultural Australia. We stand here not as defenders of an inward looking fortress where the problems of the world are never ours; instead we stand here guided by our compassion, because our compassion demands that we prevent drownings at sea, just as our compassion demands the humane treatment of all those in our care.

For us as lawmakers, as leaders, as parents and as human beings, this is not an abstract debate where the loss of human life is lightly dismissed or conveniently overlooked. We cannot limit our compassion to those in our line of sight. We never see the photos of the people who drown seeking refuge in Australia. We never hear their voices. We do not know their stories. But their life does not matter less because of this, their death is no less tragic because of this, and the duty that we owe them is no less. These are real people. The challenge before us is real, and the questions that we grapple with are as fundamental as life and death. If we sit here in the house of the Australian people with the power to pass laws which can save lives—laws which can stop some of the most desperate downtrodden people in the world from paying every last dollar they have for a cramped spot in an unsafe, possibly lethal, boat, for them and the people they love—then there is no choice: our compassion and our conscience demand that we act. We will vote for this bill because people's safety comes first. We will vote for this bill because there are some things more important than partisanship or political agendas. We will vote for this bill because we are guided by our compassion.

In voting for this legislation, we make it clear that there has been no more effective deterrent than the regional resettlement agreement introduced by Labor. I appreciate that the government, by moving this amendment bill, acknowledges the truth of Labor's policy. It acknowledges that there is no better method of preventing people from taking a dangerous voyage in unsafe vessels on a lethal journey than the arrangement that we put in place, and no better way of ensuring genuine refugees are prioritised and put ahead of those who are not; there is no more important act by an Australian government in reducing the flow of vessels than this.

Because of the agreements that Labor secured with the governments of Papua New Guinea and Nauru to have people found to be genuine refugees at the Manus Island Detention Facility and in Nauru resettled, but not in Australia, our country was unequivocally taken off the table as a permanent resettlement destination. News of these agreements spread rapidly through the people-smuggling network, despite a clear attempt by some now in government, and some of their supporters, to send a message to those very same networks that the arrangements that we put in place could be overwhelmed. The only possible outcome of such irresponsible public messages was to encourage people to continue to risk the voyage. These were messages which those opposite, and some of their backers in the community, stopped articulating the moment the election was complete.

But Labor understands, in opposition as we did in government, that it is essential that the people smugglers do not have a product to sell. This means settlement in Australia must be off the table. This is the clear, unambiguous message Labor sent from the first day of our regional resettlement policy. People would still be processed under the convention, but the people-smugglers could no longer advertise Australia as the destination. Under Labor, Australia increased our humanitarian refugee intake from 13,750 people to 20,000 people. Our policies were designed so that Australia would help more people, while ensuring that each individual got here safely. Within two months of the conclusion of Labor's Papua New Guinea agreement, vessel arrivals had dropped by 90 per cent. Following this, the new government did not put in place a single other piece of substantive policy until mid-December.

Labor believes in doing all that is necessary to bring an end to the loss of life at sea. We do support offshore processing at Nauru and Manus Island as a step which has saved lives, but this does not absolve the government from their fundamental responsibility to ensure that people on Manus Island or Nauru are treated humanely, and with dignity. We do not believe the government are running offshore processing in the way we would, or in the way that Australians would expect. Genuine refugees are vulnerable people, fleeing persecution. It is not for us to demonise them, to vilify them or to seek to score political points from their misery. They are not illegals, and fleeing persecution is never a crime.

When asylum seekers are in an Australian funded facility even if overseas, Australia still has a duty of care. Languishing in indefinite detention is not a humane solution. There is no place whatsoever in Australian funded facilities for violent, inhumane or degrading treatment. Our responsibility is to process asylum seekers as efficiently and as rapidly as possible so that genuine refugees are not left in limbo and the people who are not genuine refugees are sent home.

Regional resettlement will always be at the core of Labor's approach to this issue. We know it works. We know it sends the message to the people smugglers that their days of profiting from those in dire need are over. We know that regional resettlement when properly administered is the strongest and most humane approach to asylum seeker policy.

When Labor were asked to support this amendment there was some considerable recollection in my party of Labor's first regional resettlement policy that centred on the Malaysian arrangement. Because of the High Court's decision in that case, the fate of this plan was left in the hands of the parliament, just as we are being entrusted now. It was a debate that captured, for all to see, the poisonous, obstructionist negativity of the Abbott opposition. We remember that, after years of slogans and scaremongering, they suddenly sought to lecture us on the rights of refugees. We remember the then shadow minister for immigration, the member for Cook—the man who said in 2011 that allowing relatives of asylum seekers who drowned at sea to attend the funeral of their loved ones and, for some, the funeral of their own child was not a reasonable use of money—lecturing us about being humane. We will never forget the crocodile tears from the Treasurer when he said:

I will never ever support a people swap where you can send a 13-year-old child unaccompanied to a country without supervision—never. It will be over my dead body.

We will never forget that when Prime Minister Gillard wrote to Tony Abbott asking for bipartisanship, seeking cooperation to reach a solution, he wrote back saying: 'This is a problem that you have created and it is your responsibility to solve.' That was his idea of leadership: 'This is your mess, you fix it.'

We will never forget the deal that the Liberals and the Greens did in teaming up to defeat the Malaysia arrangement. We will never forget the 689 souls that were lost after that vote. My fear is that the truth is that the coalition opposed the Malaysia arrangement not because they thought it would not work but precisely because they were afraid it would work. They played their politics hard.

It is precisely because we remember what I think was one of the saddest days in the parliament that Labor are determined to be better. When confronted with the same facts as Tony Abbott was when he was Leader of the Opposition I could not draw the same conclusion that he did. My job as Leader of the Opposition first and foremost is to put this country first. I am a very different person. There is the national interest. We do put that first. There is the safety of people. That certainly comes first.

We will not grind this parliament to a halt. We will not create or allow the uncertainty to continue. We will not ignore the consequences of our decisions in the pursuit of political gain. When hearing the problem it took me not even 10 seconds to work out the ultimate course of action that I believe Labor must take, and when the facts were put in front of my colleagues they arrived at that same conclusion. We will do the right thing. We will help you solve this problem. As we have said from the very outset, the government will continue to have the support of Labor in bringing to an end the flow of these vessels to Australia.

Too often this debate is conducted only at the highest temperature. Too often fear and suspicion rule. Too often straw men and slogans are substituted for argument. Too often refugees are demonised. Still too often the two-decade-old, toxic, malignant poison of Hansonism seeps to the surface of Australian politics. That genie needs to be put back in the bottle forever. We can I believe because I believe we are a bigger, better and more generous country than this. We live in a nation made great by migration. We are fortunate to count people from every faith, flag and culture as our own. In the future I believe we are capable of a better conversation of how we fulfil our obligations as an international citizen and as a peaceful, prosperous nation.

Labor's approach to this question is clear. We believe in being true to our international conventions. We believe in being true to the welfare of all people affected by our policies, whether or not they are in our line of sight. We believe that the pathway to a better life for genuine refugees should always be governed and supported by, and in working with, the United Nations and its agencies, not exploited by people smugglers and their criminal networks.

Our approach is to ensure that when we offer a place in our nation—the great privilege of being a part of this country—to some of the most vulnerable people in the world they come here safely. Consistent with this approach we offer our support to the government. But I say to the government: please do not take our support lightly.

It may well be, in the light of what we have done, that the government, in its question time attacks, will stop questioning our sincerity, our commitment to safety, our commitment to refugees and our commitment to the security of this country. It may well be that this is a new turning point that it may usher in an era where the government does not always resort to the baiting of the opposition and to the politicisation of an issue which is far more important than any speech any of us will ever give here. But that may not happen. We have not asked for that promise back from the government. But when the government do this, remember what every man and woman in Labor is thinking: when you needed us, in the national interest, we were there. When you feel like taking a shot at us to pull some lever, to push some focus message, to bring out the lesser angels of the Australian nature, all I say to you is: remember this moment, because every person on our side will. I have asked the Labor Party to take the government on trust on this matter, and we know that trust is in short supply.

But, even if nothing changes in the government's approach and the way in which they treat the politics of this issue in this parliament and outside, I will ask that we should make a decision that the moment of cooperation here could be a turning point in our national debate. These decisions are not reached easily; I understand that. But I can ask all of us, including the government, for no more dehumanising, inflammatory language, for no more false bravado or faux toughness. Let us no longer use some of the world's most vulnerable people as a prop for politics. Take what we are doing, and let us commit to a parliament which we can explain to our children we were proud to serve in, because this is the right thing to do. Let us commit to a parliament worthy of our decent, civilised, humane country, a parliament which shows us for who we truly are. The nation that we want to see in the mirror should be reflected in the parliament of Australia: compassionate, strong, generous, secure, safe and fair.

We all love our country. We are all human beings who do not want to see anyone else suffer. But, because we all love our country, today let us vow to serve it better.

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