Zaneta Mascarenhas (Swan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'd like to start with three principles. First of all, all Australian governments want to keep our citizens safe. That's something that I think both sides of this chamber can fundamentally understand. The other thing that I would say is that all lives matter. That's something that I think that we can agree as humans. Finally, what I would say is that words in this place matter, and they can be amplified, so we need to be really intentional about what we say in here.

Thank you for this opportunity to speak about this. I am a new MP, and I have been often proud of the 47th Parliament. I had thought that we had come a long way in this place, but here we are again with the Liberal Party back playing the 'tough on borders' game. That game didn't work. They failed to keep Australians safe. Laws that are unconstitutional do not keep anyone safe.

Look, the High Court, the highest court of the land, has made a decision. And one of the things I think all Australians would agree on is that law and justice are important and that nobody is above the law, including those people in this House. The High Court has the roles and functions to interpret the law and decide on important cases. We live in a system where courts make independent decisions, separate to the decisions or actions of the executive—or this parliament. I think it's fascinating that we're back here doing politics 101, law 101, justice 101. This is a fundamental essence of our democracy. It's important that we remember and reflect on this.

It's called responsible government and it's about separation of powers. These are concepts that eluded the member for Cook, and it seems to be contagious—maybe that's because the member for Cook is still a member of this parliament—as it appears the member for Dickson has the same affliction. He couldn't answer the question this morning at his press conference about why he had not deported the detainees when he was immigration minister. He couldn't answer it. Was he keeping Australia unsafe? I think that he knows it. He tried twice to write legislation to strip citizenship from some of the worst criminals you can come across, and twice he failed. And then his party defunded the high-risk terrorist offenders scheme. His party failed to keep Australia safe. Labor fixed that, and this is another mess that Labor has to clean up once again.

What the High Court has done on this occasion is perform its function, one that is independent of the executive and the legislative arm of the government. This decision has changed some of the ways in which Australia can hold people in detention. But we need to remember that the High Court has not released the full judgement yet, so we can only anticipate the full extent of the legislative response that is necessary to reflect that judgement. The government is doing what it can, as we heard earlier today. I understand, from listening to the debate, that the government is monitoring the changes brought down by the High Court and what the requirements of their visas should be.

We should all keep our communities safe. We all want to foster social cohesion and goodwill amongst the community, which is another reason why the words that we say in this place matter. It fundamentally does. There are moments in this place where I'm ashamed to call myself a politician and I think that we really need to look hard at ourselves and be really intentional about what we're trying to achieve.

You can choose division or you can choose unity. You can choose love; you can choose hate. You can choose disunity; you can choose peace. Our government is dealing with the decisions of the High Court, as we heard from the minister today, and this is a government that is acting without hysteria. I love Australia and I think everyone should have a sense of belonging here.

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