Alicia Payne (Canberra, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

In our parliament, we see the absolute best and worst of Australia, and today is no different. This morning I was really inspired to attend a parliamentary breakfast to celebrate the International Day of the Girl Child, which is an international day started by the UN to recognise the challenges faced by girl children around the world, particularly those living in poverty. This breakfast was organised by World Vision as part of their campaign of 1,000 voices for 1,000 girls, wanting Australians to sponsor 1,000 girl children. They've actually already met that target before the day, which is 11 October, so they're now aiming for 3,000.

I was particularly moved to hear from Akec Makur Chuot, who was the first African to be drafted into the AFLW. After a successful career in the AFL, she is now a commentator for Channel 7. Her sister, Ayor Makur Chuot, is a member of the WA Legislative Council and the first WA state MP of an African background. Akec was born in war-torn South Sudan in the same year that her father was killed there. She lived for 12 years in the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya. It was inspiring to hear that coming to Australia as a refugee meant that she escaped a likely future of being married as a child, as one of her half sisters was. She also talked about how, as a girl, she wasn't able to play sports at all growing up there. But when she came to Australia she was able to pursue that through her school and ended up playing for the AFLW for four different clubs. Her story is like so many of refugees who have found their home in Australia. For us who have not experienced that journey, it really is hard to fathom what people like Akec have experience and what they have overcome in order to live their lives here.

Unfortunately, we also see the absolute worst in this place from those opposite, who are politicising something that should well be above this. I'm not surprised to see it, but I remain disappointed that there is no gutter that those opposite won't get down into and no issue that they will not exploit for political gain and to create division in our community. I'm disappointed to see that the misinformation about immigration continues to flow from those opposite, and I'm concerned that the alternative government of this country continues to weaponise a decision of the High Court of Australia and this issue of immigration. They are happy to pretend that they don't understand the separation of powers or our constitution and that our government is not taking immigration very seriously and doing the things that we should be doing. Now, as they continue to stoke fear around immigration and division, they are also saying that they do not trust our systems—systems that they want to be in government to run. They set tests for our government that they never would have passed when they were in government.

If you want to talk about incompetence when it comes to the home affairs portfolio, you don't need to look any further than the Leader of the Opposition when he was the Minister for Immigration and the member for Mitchell. During his tenure, the Leader of the Opposition released 1,300 criminals from immigration detention, including 102 convicted sex offenders, 64 of whom committed their offences against children. The Leader of the Opposition likes to talk tough on immigration, but on his watch we saw neglect of this important portfolio. The truth is that Australia has a long and proud history of humanitarian resettlement and that refugees from all around the world have made such an important contribution to building our nation, economy and communities as we know them today. The truth is that diversity is a strength and something that should be celebrated. Some of our most successful and respected citizens came as refugees fleeing war and persecution. These are people like Frank Lowy, Harry Triguboff, Anh Do, Les Murray and Dr Karl. Just today in the parliament, we've seen former Liberal Premier of Tasmania Peter Gutwein here. He has done a walk to shine a light on the contribution of migrants to our country. It will be interesting to know how his discussion goes with the Leader of the Opposition later today, when this federal opposition cannot recognise this and instead politicise it for— (Time expired)

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