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

I second the motion. The minister has implied that babies and children are in hospital, or may end up in hospital, as part of some deliberate coordinated attempt to blackmail this government. That is a disgusting statement, and it is worthy of censure. Standing orders must be suspended because there are dozens of other babies and children in Australia right now whose situation is uncertain, and heir parents and those around them will be looking to what the minister says to know whether or not they have a chance of raising their kids in a healthy environment.

Let us recap how we got here. The minister was asked a simple question about whether baby Asha would be entitled to stay in Australia or whether she would be sent back to Nauru. He was also asked what was going to happen to the other children. What did the minister say? He said he would not preside over a situation where we have people self-harming to come to hospitals in this country because they believe that to be the route into the Australia community and to Australian citizenship. You can only draw two inferences from that. The first is that babies and children are self-harming because they believe that is how they can get to Australia—that Baby Asha's situation was not the result of an accident, was not the result of spilt boiling water, that babies and children are somehow making that decision for themselves! Secondly, the minister is implying that the families of those babies and children are harming them or encouraging them to self-harm in order to come to Australia. That is a disgusting and vile statement.

And as we always see with this government and the Liberal-Nationals, when the polls go down the vileness goes up, and it is happening yet again. As we head towards another election it is becoming another race to the bottom on refugees, another race to the bottom to see who can take the most vulnerable in our community, those who need the most help, those who are coming here seeking our help, babies and children who have committed no crime other than being born here and going to school here—how we can treat them. And what does the minister say? 'Well, there's self-harm going on, and it may be that they're doing it themselves or it may be that their parents are encouraging them to do it.'

This so-called party of family values stands up in this parliament and says it is conceivable that some parents might encourage their children to harm themselves just to get into a hospital. I have not met one parent anywhere, of any race or nationality, who would ever consider putting their child in harm's way, whatever the potential gain. And now we have the immigration minister suggesting that there might be some deliberate plot hatched to get children into Australian hospitals. What he is overlooking is the simple point that the doctors and the health staff in Brisbane made loud and clear, and it is the same point that is being made by doctors and health staff in my electorate of Melbourne, and it is the same point that is being made by state premiers, and it is the same point that is being made by thousands and thousands around the country: detention harms children. That is why they said they were not going to release them, not as part of some nefarious plot but because detention harms children, and this minister knows it.

Say what you like about the various merits of asylum seeker policy; I think everyone understands that this is a complex issue, and if you do not think it is a complex issue you have not been paying attention. But the suggestion from this government boils down to this: whatever we might be able to do in terms of a regional solution, whatever options there might be, the government is saying that somehow child abuse is a necessary component of an effective border protection and immigration policy. What rot. We do not agree with that. The Greens do not accept that our only choice is between deaths at sea and child abuse.

I notice that the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection is in the chamber, and I hope he is going to stand up. I, because if you stand up and if you are really concerned about deaths at sea then take this opportunity to assure us that on your watch, from the boat turn-backs, there have been no deaths at sea. Tell us that every boat you have turned back has not gone on to cause deaths at sea. Take this opportunity to tell us that there have not been deaths at sea somewhere else as people choose not to come to Australia but instead seek asylum elsewhere.

This is a complicated issue. Of course it is a complicated issue. But the suggestion that the only way we can solve it is by child abuse, and the implication that parents might be encouraging their children to self-harm, is vile, and the minister should be censured.

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