Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House notes the frequency of poor drafting of legislation and associated instruments in matters relating to immigration by successive Coalition Governments, and the resulting unintended consequences".

I rise to speak on the Migration (Validation of Port Appointment) Bill 2018. We're debating this bill in this place today because successive coalition governments have a very poor track record when it comes to drafting immigration matters. Poorly drafted immigration legislation or regulations can create unintended consequences for the safety and security of Australia and Australians alike, with the potential to undermine the integrity of Australia's migration framework. The current Minister for Immigration and Border Protection—although I'm pretty sure he'd prefer just to be called the Minister for Home Affairs—regularly brings into this place broad, poorly drafted and even erroneous legislation that is littered with unintended consequences. This has become a consistent theme of the out-of-touch Turnbull government. I urge them, especially the Minister for Home Affairs, as well as his junior ministers, to take extra-special care in their work. In cleaning up the Turnbull government's mess and the mess of successive coalition governments, Labor will support this bill.

The Territory of Ashmore and Cartier Islands is located off the north-west coast of Western Australia between Australia and Indonesia. The islands are located in the Indian Ocean. There are a few small islands and some reefs, and they're uninhabited. Under the Migration Act 1958, the minister may, by notice published in the Gazette, appoint ports as proclaimed ports for the purposes of the Migration Act and fix the limits of those ports. Under the powers, the Territory of Ashmore and Cartier Islands is considered an excised offshore place for the purpose of the Migration Act after 21 September 2001. Any person who enters Australia by sea at this territory without a valid visa is considered an unauthorised maritime arrival under the act.

The bill before the House fixes up errors, quite simply typos, made by an immigration minister of a former coalition government in the relevant Gazette. On 23 January 2002, then immigration minister Ruddock published a gazette that erroneously omitted the number '12' before the word 'degree', the letter 's' from the word 'degrees' in the latitude coordinates and the word 'longitude' before 122 degrees 59.0 minutes. The bill will correct these poor-drafting errors by this minister of the former Howard government. The specific quadrant of the earth's surface in which the coordinates occur will be inserted with these amendments by including the words 'south' and 'east' in the description.

In correcting these errors, the amendments will retrospectively validate the 2002 Gazette notice which authorises the waters surrounding the Ashmore territory and Cartier Islands as a port for the purposes of the Migration Act. These errors could have been avoided in the very first instance, if it wasn't for the poor drafting by the former coalition government.

In this place we've seen poorly drafted legislation on numerous occasions, including in instruments, by successive coalition governments, including by the current Minister for Home Affairs. The minister is a tick-and-flick minister incapable of managing his department, which is inherently complex and has many challenges and responsibilities. Despite this inability to perform the job ahead of him and expected of him, the minister never seems to miss a trick to misrepresent our position on asylum seeker policy.

I want to take this opportunity, when we're dealing with legislation that deals with this very topic, to reiterate Labor's policy on asylum seekers. We will never let people smugglers back into business. Every time the Liberals misrepresent our strong position on border protection, they're playing into the hands of people smugglers and criminal syndicates who prey on vulnerable people. We on this side of the chamber believe in strong borders, offshore processing, regional resettlement, and turn-backs when it's safe to do so because it saves lives at sea.

Every time the current minister undermines Labor's strong position on border protection, it is a walking, talking billboard for people smugglers, and he should be ashamed of himself. When speaking about the threat of people smugglers, the minister has said:

What I would say is that anybody, when they're talking about these matters, needs to be careful and circumspect about what it is that they're saying because it will be interpreted a particular way by people smugglers … People need to be mindful of what they are saying publicly.

The inconsistency of the Minister for Home Affairs is obvious and rank. I suggest to the minister he should be actually doing his job and negotiating other third-country resettlement options for eligible refugees on Manus Island and Nauru. Manus and Nauru were set up as temporary regional processing centres. They've become places of indefinite detention because of this out-of-touch government's failure to negotiate other third-country resettlement options. The minister's failure to negotiate third-country resettlement options has meant genuine refugees have languished in indefinite detention. As they've languished, they've suffered because of the Turnbull government's terrible incompetence in managing Australia's funded offshore regional processing centres.

On 30 May 2018, the Queensland coroner handed down findings into the 2014 death of an asylum seeker from Manus Island. The coroner found the death was preventable and the result of compounding effects of multiple errors in their health care, including ineffective processes relating to medical transfers. These are serious findings that cannot go unanswered or ignored by the Turnbull government, and Labor will always hold this out-of-touch government to account for failures such as this.

Ensuring Australia maintains strong borders does not absolve the government of its obligation to provide appropriate health, security and welfare services to people living in Australian funded offshore regional processing centres. If the Minister for Home Affairs is incapable of doing his job, then the Prime Minister should find someone else who's capable or should step in himself.

Labor has repeatedly called on the Turnbull government to accept New Zealand's offer to resettle eligible refugees from Manus and Nauru. The government should negotiate conditions similar to the US refugee resettlement agreement to prevent people smuggling and the exploitation of vulnerable people. If the government were able to negotiate conditions for the US deal, they should be able to negotiate similar conditions with the government of New Zealand so that genuine refugees are resettled in third countries as soon as possible.

Labor believes in strong borders which prevent deaths at sea while committing to a more humane and compassionate approach. The poor drafting of immigration legislation and associated instruments should not happen in this place in the first place. However, poor drafting such as this has become a hallmark of successive coalition governments. The unintended consequences that come as a result of poor drafting have the potential to undermine the integrity of Australia's migration framework. Given this, Labor will support this legislation as the government attempts to clean up this mess of its own creation.

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