Andrew Wilkie (Denison, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

In 2015 I gave a speech in this place in which I characterised Australia as having reached a 'pre police state'. In that speech I went into some detail, lamenting the concerns in the community at the way our democracy and our liberties have been diminished. I think I spoke on behalf of a great many members of the community: people who had seen, experienced, sensed or just suspected that our country was evolving in a negative way, that we could no longer take for granted things that we used to, and that the power of the state in this country was being extended beyond any reasonable limit.

I regret to say that, as I stand here today and talk about this bill, nothing has changed; in fact, if this bill were to become law then things will have worsened. Remember, this bill would allow: the minister to ban whatever he wants from immigration detention centres and to extend the existing screening search-and-seizure powers, including strip searches; areas of immigration detention to be searched without a warrant; and the use of detector dogs to screen not just detainees but even people visiting an immigration detention centre. In other words this bill goes beyond any reasonable attempt to improve the way activities are conducted in immigration detention centres.

In effect it goes another step closer to turning immigration detention centres into jails, but in some ways it goes beyond and is even worse than that, because at least the jails in all our jurisdictions conform to or sit within a framework of carefully considered laws and legislation. Before someone goes to jail, they would normally have been suspected of an offence, have been charged and have had their day in court, where they would have had legal representation. What goes on inside those prisons would be overseen by the state and territory governments.

In this case the government is seeking to go even further in the way it can, completely outside the justice system, grab hold of someone in the community and detain them indefinitely without charge. Those people in immigration detention centres haven't necessarily been suspected of any wrongdoing, haven't been charged with anything, haven't had a day in court and haven't had a chance to be legally represented; they are just jailed indefinitely without charge on the whim of a government official or the relevant minister in this government.

This is really alarming. When it comes to immigration matters and irregular immigration to this country, this government thinks it can act outside of any law. It thinks it can create these almost 'black sites' where it can just grab someone off the street and lock them up indefinitely without trial and with very few rights—even fewer, if this bill becomes law. There is no procedural fairness whatsoever. It is completely outside of any sort of proper legal framework and process.

Why on earth would the government want to do this and behave in this way? I think there are a number of reasons. It is another effort by the government to demonise people who are involved with immigration matters and, in particular, those who attempt to come to this country through irregular means. I am talking, of course, about asylum seekers in particular. But in doing that it is changing the whole immigration detention arrangement and ensuring that anyone in the community who is not an Australian citizen but is even merely suspected of something is thrown in one of these immigration detention centres. In a healthy and law-abiding country like Australia, if there is someone in the community of any nationality who is suspected on reasonable grounds of any wrongdoing—and the government likes to say it is suspected sex offenders, members of bikie gangs and whatnot—they should be charged and front court in Australia. What's this about putting them in mysterious immigration detention centres without trial, in some cases indefinitely—which is a punishment in itself—and then sending the problem to some other country? If someone has done something wrong according to Australian law in this country then we should deal with that matter in this country and they should front a court in this country. They certainly shouldn't be put in an immigration detention centre.

Some years ago now, in 2014, I approached the International Criminal Court to bring to their attention the concern of many Australians that a series of Australian governments had been in breach of the Rome statute. That series of Australian governments, including this one now, are guilty of crimes against humanity for a whole range of reasons. Article 7 of the Rome statute covers 'imprisonment and other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law', 'deportation or forcible transfer' of people, and other acts 'intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body and mental physical health'. That part of the Rome statute sounds as relevant today and as relevant to this bill as it has sounded on any number of occasions in recent years and during the terms of a number of governments in recent times.

I will be sending my concerns about this bill to the International Criminal Court as well, and they can add it to the file—and I suspect it is quite a hefty file. It does raise the question: when is an Australian government going to start acting like the government of a lucky, wealthy and civilised country? When is an Australian government going to start respecting international law when it comes to immigration matters? I have already spoken in a bit of detail there about how, in my opinion, a number of Australian governments have failed to comply with the Rome statute, which is an important international agreement we have signed up to. I think it is also self-evident that a series of Australian governments, including this government, are also failing to abide by the refugee convention, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

What is so hard about understanding the importance of international law? What is so hard about understanding that we have signed up to those agreements in good faith because we thought they were important and they are still important and we should still comply with them? It seems to be the case with Australian governments these days that international law is only important when it suits us. When it comes to immigration matters—in particular, irregular immigration to this country—it doesn't suit us, so we ignore it. In doing so, when it comes to immigration issues, this country has become a pariah among the community of nations. The way we deal with irregular immigrants to this country is simply unconscionable.

It is even more unconscionable when you think that the global situation of displaced people is even worse now than at any other time—far worse even than at the end of the Second World War. Looking at the UNHCR figures, there are 65.6 million people forcibly displaced worldwide, of whom more than 20 million are refugees and 10 million are stateless people. No wonder Turkey is hosting 2.9 million of these people, Pakistan 1.5 million, Lebanon one million, Iran about one million, Uganda about one million and Ethiopia three-quarters of a million. This is an enormous global challenge, and the burden is being shouldered by a small number of countries—and not ours. It is simply not good enough for this government and previous governments to crow and say, 'Oh, but we're the first or the second or the third best in the world when it comes to the number of people we take in through a humanitarian program.' That's cooking the books, because that's referring only to the percentage of people that are taken through the UNHCR program. It completely ignores the fact that millions more—tens of millions more—are displaced and are refugees.

We are not a generous country, and we are going to be a whole lot less generous if this bill becomes law. How dare the minister and the government think that it's appropriate to take these sorts of actions when it comes to immigration detention centres, which are mostly filled with people dealing with simple immigration matters? These centres are not full of sex offenders and bikies. They're full of regular people, many of whom are awaiting a simple immigration determination, often because they've attempted to come to Australia because they've been fleeing for their life.

This bill is unsupportable, and I certainly won't be supporting it. No wonder. Just in the last 12 months, I think I've counted five different episodes where the United Nations has criticised Australia. Some people in this place will say: 'Who cares about the United Nations? They're discredited.' Well, they are not discredited. At the end of the day, the United Nations is the best we've got. It is the one body where the community of nations can come together and speak as one. For this country to have been criticised, on my count, five times in the last 12 months because of our response to asylum seekers is simply unconscionable. In the last 12 months we've had the head of the UNHCR, no less, criticise Australia. We've had the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights criticise Australia. About a year ago a United Nations team in Papua New Guinea criticised our response to asylum seekers. The UN Human Rights Council criticised Australia's response to asylum seekers. Quite recently the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination criticised Australia.

I am proud of this country and I am proud of everything we have achieved and of what we can become, but I am ashamed of the way this country responds to asylum seekers. I am ashamed of the fact that we have mandatory detention, that we have offshore processing, and that we have tow-backs and temporary protection visas. I am ashamed of the fact that the Republic of Nauru is being used as a prison island for people, most of whom have simply tried to make it to Australia because they were fleeing for their lives. I am ashamed of the fact that there are hundreds of men on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea that have supposedly been released, only to do their best to survive in a hostile community—an understandably hostile community; they've got their own concerns about what these hundreds of men from other countries are suddenly doing wandering their streets and trying their best to live in substandard accommodation and facilities, with completely inadequate services provided for them. I am ashamed of all of this.

Mark my words: when the history books are written about this period in Australian history—the period from a few decades ago up until now, and particularly now—historians will lament the fact that this country responded to asylum seekers in the way it has. They are not going to say what a wonderful country we are because we stopped the boats. Those historians are going to lament the fact that we completely and utterly lost any respect for relevant international laws, that we became an international pariah, and that we had ministers and governments who thought it was okay to extend the screening, search and seizure powers, including strip searches, of people in immigration detention, to have dogs sniffing not just the inmates but even the people visiting them in what are effectively jails, to search without a warrant, to ban anything we want, and to, in effect, establish these black sites where we can dump any non-Australian citizen indefinitely without trial in dreadful circumstances and think it's okay. It's not okay. I hope and I expect the opposition will vote against this bill, and I'm sure a number of the crossbenchers are going to vote against it, including me.

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