Peta Murphy (Dunkley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to start by doing what many contributors to this debate have done: thanking everyone for the way they have contributed to the debate. I acknowledge that everyone who has spoken—and most people in this chamber—finds this issue to be a complex, heart-rending and incredibly difficult issue to have to deal with, but they come at it with a deep intention to try to make decisions that are the best for people in circumstances where those decisions are really hard and people aren't going to agree on the decisions.

I also want to say, hand on heart, that I am incredibly proud to be in this parliament and in a government with this minister. The newer members of the crossbench and the government—and, I guess, even the opposition—probably understand that this was the case but haven't experienced what debates about this topic have been like in this parliament previously. It is a monumental change for this parliament to have a minister respond to a matter of public importance like the one that the member for Warringah put up by being thoughtful—not by pretending that all of the decisions of the government are going to be ones that everyone in this parliament agrees with but by being thoughtful, putting a hand out for cooperation and acknowledging the fundamental humanity of people who are seeking asylum. It is a huge change that we should all be grateful for.

I want to start the rest of my contribution with this observation: I was 25 years old and working in this parliament in 2001, so I vividly remember Tampa, September 11 and the children overboard saga. For me personally, that was my awakening to the issues of people seeking asylum and how they can be weaponised politically. I assure you it's something I have never forgotten.

It has to be said that that moment in time in 2001, when the Howard government misled the Australian people by telling them that desperate people seeking asylum in Australia had thrown their children overboard from the boat they were in, when they absolutely had not, sowed the seeds for the destructive, inhumane political weaponisation of desperate people that we have seen for the two decades since. It was an act of political opportunism and of willingness to use the plight of desperate people for political gain that has reverberated through our society. Until this point, it has also made it impossible to have a thoughtful, considered debate on the competing and complex issues about how we deal with people seeking asylum, particularly those who are seeking asylum outside of what are known to be the normal processes. But we do have to have it, and we do have to have it in the way we've had it today.

Everyone on this side has emphasised, rightly, that our government is absolutely clear that, if there are no security or safety concerns, individuals should be living in the community until a durable solution is finalised. We have been in power for 72 days, which is not that long to make massive changes. We did get the Climate Change Bill 2022 through, hopefully, but I do urge the crossbench to keep the faith about the things the minister has said that we want to do.

I absolutely agree that no human being can be well after 10 years in indefinite detention. I have met and spoken with people who have sought to come to Australia on those horrible, rickety deathtrap boats and people who were dragooned into piloting those boats. No-one does that unless they're desperate. We have to protect the lives of people who would seek such a dangerous journey and we have to be humane in the way we deal with people who get here. I want to be part of that conversation.

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