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

Ali—that's not his real name—is a 63-year-old man who has been diagnosed with advanced lung cancer. Doctors have told him he does not have long to live. That's a devastating diagnosis for anyone, but, for Ali, there is a cruel twist: he is an Afghan asylum seeker from the persecuted Hazara minority and, right now, he is in an Australian detention centre on Nauru. He has asked to come to Australia to receive palliative care—palliative care!—but the Australian government has refused. Not only is this government leaving this man with late stage cancer in detention, where he cannot receive appropriate care, but, rather than bring him to Australia, the Australian Border Force has offered him $25,000 to return to Afghanistan, from where he fled and faces danger. This is obscene. What kind of country have we become? How can this government be so lacking in basic decency?

This is the natural extension of the cruel detention system that Labor and Liberal governments have built. Last week, 26-year-old Fariborz K took his own life after years of long-term detention. He became the 12th person to die in Australian detention on Manus Island or Nauru—the 12th person to die! He experienced severe trauma in Iran, and years of detention left his mental health in crisis. He leaves behind his mother and 12-year-old brother, who remain in detention on Nauru. This World Refugee Week, I say: not one more; not one more death. We must bring here Ali and every one of the 16,000 asylum seekers in detention. (Time expired)

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