Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to follow the member for Macnamara, and I commend him on his contribution to this debate. This bill, the Migration Amendment (Prohibiting Items in Immigration Detention Facilities) Bill 2020, allows the minister to prohibit or ban almost any item from use within an immigration detention facility. The things to be prohibited are not spelt out in the bill but will be listed in what is now a disallowable legislative instrument. Being a disallowable legislative instrument is in itself a backflip by the government and in particular by the minister, who, in the first bill that was introduced on this matter, wanted it to be a non-disallowable legislative instrument. That immediately implies that what the government wanted was to be able to make decisions in respect of these matters without ever being accountable to this parliament. It's a role of this parliament to have some oversight of matters as important as this. At least on that matter, I note that the government has now backflipped.

The Minister for Home Affairs and the minister for immigration already have extraordinary powers that exceed the powers of most other ministers in this place. The only reason the backflip occurred in terms of the instrument being disallowable was the scrutiny of this parliament and the scrutiny of a committee of this parliament. It is a fundamental role of the parliament which should never ever be diminished. To now know that the minister would have liked to have had even more powers than they currently have is something that concerns me deeply.

Concerns with the original bill had been raised by numerous bodies, including the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, the Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills, the Federation of Ethnic Communities Councils of Australia, the Settlement Council of Australia, the Kaldor Centre, Liberty Victoria, the Australian Human Rights Commission, the Law Council of Australia, the Australian Lawyers for Human Rights and the Refugee Council of Australia—just to name some. All of those bodies expressing concerns about this legislation immediately sends up red flags for me. I cannot for a moment believe that such bodies would raise concerns that are flippant and not worthy of the consideration of this parliament. Indeed, my understanding is that, of the 135 submissions that went to the Senate committee on this matter, only two were in support of this legislation. One was from the minister's own department and the other was from Serco, the operator of one of the facilities that we would be referring to. Notwithstanding the changes made to this legislation, which I accept are an improvement on the original bill, there are still serious concerns with what is proposed in this legislation. That is why I will be speaking and voting in support of the amendment moved by Labor.

The government's justification for the bill is the changing profile of the people in detention. At 31 March this year, my understanding is that, of the 1,373 people in closed immigration detention centres, 625, or 45 per cent, were detained due to section 501 character related visa cancellations; 512, or 37 per cent, were classed as illegal maritime rivals—in other words, refugees or asylum seekers; and, 238, or 17 per cent, were detained for other reasons, mainly related to non-criminal visa issue breaches—people who perhaps have overstayed their visas or have arrived illegally in other ways but who have not committed any criminal act against the laws of this country other than being here beyond their visa conditions. We are told that amongst the 45 per cent of the section 501 character related visa cancellations there are child sex offenders; perpetrators of violent crime, including domestic violence; murderers; and even drug offenders. There would be little or no public sympathy for that cohort. Any measures considered necessary to manage their behaviour and ensure public safety would have not only widespread public support but also my support. However, the measures in this bill are not limited to the worst of the section 501 visa cancellations. They apply to all persons in detention, including asylum seekers—

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