Zali Steggall (Warringah, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

It is deeply disappointing, from the government and from the minister, to find ourselves here now, debating a motion to essentially fast-track this legislation with no delay, no scrutiny and no debate. This is legislation on which we were briefed by the minister only a couple of hours ago, that has numerous questions and detail to which there was no answer from the minister. There are grave questions about the consequences and the far-reaching implications of this legislation, yet you are here asking this place to fast-track it without even 24 hours to consider it. It is outrageous and incredibly undemocratic. It is an absolute parody of what this place is supposed to be about, in relation to looking at what good legislation can do and having the time to consider whether it has unintended consequences.

I would look at the backbenches behind you, Minister. I can imagine everyone squirming because, for everyone, this is uncomfortable. This is not part of the Labor policy platform. As the Leader of the Greens just said, the question of mandatory sentencing is incredibly significant. This is an incredibly important step that has to be taken very carefully with a lot of scrutiny for unintended consequences—the risk in relation to domestic violence and for people that, maybe through domestic violence, abuse or homelessness, find their way into a position where they could be subject to these provisions. There are so many areas that need to be looked at. For people not understanding the consequences of this legislation, this is far reaching. This is asking of people: either cooperate with your removal or we will take action against your entire country, against anyone wanting to come from that country.

In terms of precedents for this, the minister indicated that the UK passed similar legislation two years ago but haven't really applied it, so we have nothing to go by, and then there is the US. So we're in completely new territory. You are saying that, without proper scrutiny or debate, we should all just consider and vote on this legislation. It's says something about the opposition that they are also willing to contemplate that this debate go forward. I haven't heard any speakers yet in relation to slowing this down.

For all of the backbenchers of Labor: are these really the values you subscribe to? Is this what selling your soul to a party means—that you will not have a voice when it comes to very important debates to give proper policy and legislation true scrutiny? Will you go back to your communities and say: 'We waved this through with'—what is it?—'40 minutes of debate. There was no opportunity for consultation with law societies to truly consider the proper implications of this legislation.' I have a lot of time for the minister but I am deeply, deeply disappointed with his actions today, in trying to push this through with such a short time line. If this were such a problem, it should have been worked on for a long time.

It's not going to only apply to those that were released as a direct consequence of the High Court decision. This will apply to many more people that are in these kinds of situations, who are here under bridging visas. We know that the previous Administrative Appeals Tribunal was incredibly bad, slow and ineffective in dealing with a lot of migration and refugee cases. We have a situation now where you've acknowledged that as a government. We've passed Administrative Review Tribunal legislation to have a new body in place, yet you're implementing legislation that will capture many people that fell foul of the AAT, who will be caught by this legislation. It's just so far reaching. It's hard to comprehend that this is the path and the legacy that you, as a government, want to leave behind.

Your legislation doesn't even include a mandatory review period. In the 30 minutes spare we've had since our briefing, we've at least been able to present some amendments to at least ensure there's a review process. But I'm sure the answer from government will be, 'We haven't even had time to consider your amendments, so we couldn't possibly support them.' But here we are being asked to suspend standing orders and put in place a joke of a debate. This is a parody of what democratic debate should look like. Shame on every member of government for supporting this and for coming into this place and doing something that is deeply, deeply undemocratic.

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