Melissa Parke (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It makes me very proud to speak to this motion that marks and celebrates World Refugee Day and occurs in the same year as the 60th anniversary of the refugee convention. On this important day I want to make a plea for a more reasoned and compassionate consideration of refugees and asylum seekers in Australia—a consideration based on the facts and on simple humanity.

I know from my experience of working with the UN with refugees in Kosovo and Gaza that people have a powerful attachment to their homes. I will never forget that bitterly cold winter of 1999-2000 and seeing hundreds of thousands of Kosovar refugees returning from neighbouring countries to their burnt out homes to spend the winter in UNHCR tents—or the millions of Palestinian refugees throughout the Middle East waiting in limbo for decades in UNRWA refugee camps for their internationally recognised right to return home to finally be realised.

My experience tells me that people do not leave or stay away from their homes without very good reasons. In 2001, President Vaira Vike-Freiberga of Latvia, who had fled her country as a child after the Second World War, made this statement at a meeting of parties to the refugee convention:

No one leaves their home willingly or gladly. When people leave en masse the place of their birth, the place where they live it means there is something very deeply wrong with the circumstances in that country and we should never take lightly these flights of refugees fleeing across borders. They are a sign, they are a symptom, they are proof that something is very wrong somewhere on the international scene. When the moment comes to leave your home, it is a painful moment.

…    …    …

It can be a costly choice. Three weeks and three days after my family left the shores of Latvia, my little sister died. We buried her by the roadside, we were never able to return or put a flower on her grave.

And I like to think that I stand here today as a survivor who speaks for all those who died by the roadside, some buried by their families and others not and for all those millions across the world today who do not have a voice who cannot be heard but they are also human beings, they also suffer, they also have their hopes, their dreams and their aspirations. Most of all they dream of a normal life.

…    …    …

I entreat you ladies and gentlemen when you think about the problems of refugees, think of them not in the abstract think of them no t in the bureaucratic language of decisions and declarations, and priorities in a sense that you normally think of things. I entreat you think of the human beings who are touched by your decisions, think of the lives who wait on your help.

Refugees are ordinary people fleeing from extraordinary circumstances. As a country, Australia has been deeply enriched by people who have come here as refugees. This is reflected in an email that I received a week ago from a young man in South Australia. He wrote:

I am a refugee. I arrived in 1981 at the age of three with my parents, having escaped Vietnam on a boat. We spent three days and three nights on an overcrowded vessel before landing in Malaysia. We then spent approximately nine months there before being granted a place in Adelaide. We had only the clothes on our backs and could not speak a word of English when we arrived. My father was a highly qualified teacher in Vietnam. He spent years going to university at night to regain his degrees and spent the days working as a postie to put myself and my brothers and sisters through school. I can still remember him leaving at five in the morning and not returning until late at night for several years.

I recall fondly the Australian battler friends we would have over to share in our family's milestones and being told by my parents not to copy their colourful language. 'Bloody hell' was something I learnt very early on! We were and are grateful to the Australian government and people for their support in those early years. We did need your support. We stayed at the Pennington hostel before living in housing trust homes until the mid-1980s. My father worked hard, and we bought our first Australian dream in the mid-1980s. He finally gained work with hard work—a full-time teaching position in the early nineties—and helped establish the Vietnamese curriculum in South Australia at that time.

And where am I now? I am a qualified thoracic medicine physician. I am in the final year of completing a PhD studying lung, head and neck cancer. And, yes, I could not speak a word of English when I started school at the age of five. I was 'one of them' on those boats, but luckily one of those who was given an opportunity to make a future here in Australia.

As this email shows, refugees are profoundly committed to peace and tend to pursue lives imbued with a sense of purpose, community and good fortune. The email also points to an era before mandatory detention. According to UNHCR's recent report, there is no basis in international law or practice for this policy aside from brief detention for initial identity, security and health checks. It is also expensive both in terms of cost to the taxpayer and in terms of damage to the mental health of people who have already suffered a great deal. I welcome the forthcoming parliamentary inquiry into mandatory detention.

Our first response to the term 'refugee' should be to understand that no-one willingly chooses to be one. Our second response as Australians should be to recognise that our share of the world's refugee crisis is actually a very small one and that, in fact, Australia is lucky to have its tapestry enriched with refugees. (Time expired)

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to also recognise World Refugee Day. In November last year I gave a speech to the Lowy Institute where I made a very simple point, and that is that we focus on the few at the great expense of the many. The many are the 99 per cent who will never see a resettlement outcome in another country in their lifetime. While some at this point will pause and reflect and think about the less than one per cent who may seek to come to Australia and claim asylum here, whether they come by boat or by any other method, the vast majority of refugees will never see that opportunity. They will never see a resettlement outcome. They will languish in camps for their entire lives or for generations, and one day they might be able to go home.

The Australian government and the Australian people run the most generous refugee resettlement program per capita of any country in the world. It is something that as a country we should be extraordinarily proud of, it is something that we should continue and it is something that we should uphold the integrity of. So we believe very strongly that it is important that we run a humanitarian program that has integrity; that is not held hostage to the people smugglers who would seek to undermine the integrity of that system; and that will enable the Australian people, through their government, to hand out what is probably the most precious gift on offer to a refugee—and that is resettlement, because, as the motion notes, less than one per cent will end up getting a resettlement outcome in a third country. We should continue this program and we should be proud of it, but we should hold steadfastly to protecting the integrity of that program so that at all times we are in a position to decide who will get that great life chance of resettlement in a country—in particular, in Australia.

The motion points to the fact that there are not queues. Well, there simply are queues. There were 47,000 people in the queue to be part of our offshore applied humanitarian program in Australia last year: 9,577 of them were Afghans and 7,532 of them were Iraqis. Of the Iraqis who applied offshore 1,688 were able to receive a visa, and of the Afghans who applied only 951 were. So one in 10 Afghans who applied offshore got that opportunity for a resettlement place in Australia, and over the same period more than nine out of 10 or thereabouts of those that had arrived by boat took that opportunity by presenting on our shores.

It is important that we have a program that has integrity. In the speech that I gave to the Lowy Institute last year, I called on an international focus to ensure that the UNHCR put its first priority on countries of first asylum—ensuring that the conditions in those camps in the countries of first asylum are of a standard that enables the vast majority who will live their lives in those camps, and often see their grandchildren live and be raised up in those camps, to be given at least some opportunity in life—and also that all of our efforts internationally are focused on ensuring that people can get home safely. That is what our soldiers are doing in Afghanistan today: to provide the opportunity for a safe country where people can go home and live their lives in peace and in freedom. That is our goal for the world's refugee problem: that people can go home safely.

There is a call in this motion for there to be a bipartisan position that recognises that it is possible to protect Australia's borders while also treating asylum seekers fairly, humanely and in accordance with international law. We had that arrangement. We had it in 2007, when there were just four people in our detention network who had arrived by boat, and this government departed from that. I am all for bipartisanship, but not at the expense of bad policy. I am all for bipartisanship that enables us to pursue policy that is in the best interests of this country, but when we have policies such as those pursued by this government—which have led to around 11,500 people taking that treacherous voyage to force claims on a country rather than enable those claims to be assessed along with the offshore applications that would enable an equal opportunity for those who are applying offshore—when we see over 6,500 people in detention, spending three times as long there as they were just two years ago, and when we see the costs balloon and the misery continue, you can draw only one conclusion: that this is failed policy.

So the coalition will continue our strong support for our refugee and humanitarian program, but we will stand up for the integrity of that program. We are concerned about its integrity under this government, and we want to see that restored. That is why we believe the more cost-effective, more humane and more effective and proven solution is to reintroduce processing on Nauru and to reintroduce temporary protection visas, because that is what stopped the boats and, at the end of the day, supported the rights of refugees. (Time expired)

Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to begin by thanking the member for Fremantle for putting forward this motion. The member for Fremantle has a record of work and advocacy for the rights of refugees, and I welcome the opportunity to speak to the motion this evening. Today, as has already been mentioned, is World Refugee Day, and as such we have an opportunity to recognise and reflect on the plight of people who are forced through a myriad of circumstances to flee their homes in search of refuge and asylum. The conditions and circumstances of some 10 million refugees can often shake the strongest of human resolve. Yet, despite being amongst the world's most vulnerable people, refugees have time and time again displayed a level of courage and resilience that is testament to the extraordinary human capacity to endure and survive amidst dislocation and displacement which strike at the very heart of human life and dignity.

The rights of each and every individual are sacred, and this year's theme, 'One refugee without hope is one too many,' recognises this. Refugees do not choose their circumstances, and the purpose of seeking asylum is an article of faith in itself. It is placing faith in a common humanity—a faith that others around the world can restore hope through a compassionate and humanitarian approach. It is a faith in international law and the mechanisms which guide it. Yet, unfortunately, there are those amongst us who choose to play politics with this issue and who, for cynical reasons, prefer to fan the flames of fear and anxiety. As a result, they lose sight of their common humanity.

World Refugee Day serves to remind us that, as a society, Australia can stand and has stood tall in meeting its responsibilities to refugees. Historically, we have offered asylum to hundreds of thousands who have sought safety and refuge in this country. We will continue to do so because it is morally and legally the right thing to do, but we also need to reflect on the fact that refugees have made a positive and profound contribution to this country. My electorate is home to many refugees, initially from war-torn Europe, from Africa, from the Middle East and from Asia. These are wonderful people, grateful for the refuge they were given, eager to make a contribution and eager to build a new life for themselves and their families. More recently we have welcomed thousands of Chaldeans from Iraq, settling in our region, becoming Australian citizens and eager to be a part of what they call a democratic, multicultural community. Part of the fear campaign waged in this country goes to the perception that we are being swamped by illegal arrivals, or boat people. It is so easy to peddle fear, but we need to put things into perspective. The reality is that Australia receives an extremely small number of people seeking asylum when measured on a global scale. We need to note this here today. Our current refugee situation is a pathetically minute issue in comparison to, let us say, what is going on in Europe—in particular, to what is going on in countries like Greece, which, for example, has about 400,000 refugees—or to what is going on in our neighbour Malaysia, which has about 94,000. These countries are much smaller and poorer than ours and they are countries with porous borders. The motion calls for a return to bipartisanship in support of a reasoned, principled and fact based approach to this issue. Bipartisanship is essential to developing policies and strategies that uphold our legal, moral and humanitarian responsibilities.

I want to reflect on the political debate on refugees that we are currently having, a debate that must surely shame us. I say 'shame' because in the last decade, in particular since the Howard government broke bipartisanship on refugees, we have been caught up in a self-indulgent political narrative that seeks to politicise the issue of asylum seekers and refugees through a campaign of fear and political opportunism. It is a narrative that has distorted the intentions of government and blurred the truth when it comes to reporting facts. We can bear discussions and differences of opinion, but what this House must not tolerate is the hypocrisy and political point-scoring that drives the debate at the moment. It does not serve our national interest.

Refugees and asylum seekers do not seek charity; they seek life—a right which is natural, inalienable and self-evident. Let us remember that this is a complex global issue which needs a sensible and measured approach. Political parties and politicians have a responsibility to inform public debate, not to misinform it. Some of us may never imagine being forced to face life-threatening risks, but here in Australia we live amongst people who have been refugees, who have made the perilous journey and who, proudly calling Australia home, have joined us in our safe haven. I pay tribute to them and to the many in my electorate I proudly represent and to their resolve to be some of our most outstanding citizens.

Judi Moylan (Pearce, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Sixty years ago, Australia was the sixth country in the world to sign the United Nations refugee convention. Since the convention came into force, 750,000 refugees have made Australia their home. As this motion says, refugees have contributed to every aspect of Australian life, bringing with them unique cultures, skills and values which have enriched our culture, economy, social fabric and governance. I strongly support this motion and I thank the member for Fremantle for bringing to the attention of the House the celebration today of World Refugee Day.

For me, however, the day is one that comes with deep sadness and a sense of shame, knowing that the Australian government will implement the so-called Malaysian solution. For those fleeing persecution, war and ethnic cleansing, there are few options but to flee their homeland. We are dealing with the worst of human conditions and, as a parliament, we must resolve to craft a durable, humane and regionally based response that is proportionate to the dimensions of the problem. I particularly endorse the call in this motion for a return to bipartisan support so that this debate is both reasoned and principled.

As it stands, the current approach is both a human and a diplomatic disaster. Do we not stop to consider how our approach may look to neighbouring countries? Malaysia, for example, has registered 93,000 refugees. Yet our political rhetoric is that we are being swamped by refugees—in fact some have even called it a tsunami. As this motion points out, Australia took in 8,250 asylum seekers in 2010 compared to the 358,000 people seeking asylum in 44 major industrialised countries in 2010. Do we not stop to consider what might happen to this very important convention if every other country in the world were to seek to shift their responsibility onto states which are not signatories to the convention and which are less well-equipped to manage the resettlement of refugees than we are in this country? We whip up fear and fervour with the use of slippery slogans and puerile prose, such as being 'swamped' and 'tsunamis of refugees', along with 'queue jumpers' and 'illegals'. Such language is unbecoming of our leadership and should be banished from our lexicon.

The spectacle of a mother, with her young child, having arrived on Christmas Island seeking refuge, being threatened with separation from her husband and the father of the child and with being sent to Malaysia is cruel beyond belief. The action demonstrates a yawning moral and legal deficiency in our policy approach to refugees. This case was widely reported over the weekend.

In my view, it is time to return to the foundation principles that should be the hallmark of all policymaking—the robust defence of human life and human dignity. Neither the Malaysia nor the Nauru solutions fit the criteria and both should be immediately abandoned, as should the cruel practice of arbitrary, indefinite mandatory detention. It is still a matter of grave concern to me that several years—in fact, it is about five and a half years—after having negotiated with the Howard government to make sure that families with children were removed from detention centres, we still have hundreds of children in detention in this country. We had an agreement with the Prime Minister at that time, which was enshrined in legislation, to only put children into detention centres—and let us be honest here; we call them detention centres, but they are really prisons, and in some of those prisons there are people awaiting deportation for murder, for rape, for violent crimes—as an absolute last resort, yet we still have children locked up in these centres. From my point of view, I think it is time to honour the commitments made by both governments to only detain children as an absolute last resort. Let us get those children out of detention centres and let us, for once, join together to put an end to arbitrary, indefinite mandatory detention.

Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What do all these great Australians—researcher Gustav Nossal, entrepreneur Frank Lowy, scientist Karl Kruszelnicki, academic Eva Cox, commentator Les Murray, comedian Ahn Do; sportsman Majak Daw, television presenter Yalda Hakim, the late businessman Richard Pratt and Justice James Spiegelman—have in common? They were all refugees. World Refugee Day is a day to reflect on the generosity of Australia. We are a big country with a big heart This is something we should be proud of. Since 1945, over three-quarters of a million people have resettled in Australia. Those who have sought refuge in our country have made significant social, economic and cultural contributions to the nation we are today and to the nation we will be tomorrow.

Today, along with the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, I attended the Canberra Refugee Support scholarship ceremony. For the past six years the Canberra Refugee Support scholarship program has brought together the ACT government, local businesses, community organisations and individual citizens in helping refugees overcome hardship and persecution through the benefits of education and vocational opportunities. Today 22 refugees from Burma, Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, Iran and Ethiopia were awarded scholarships to assist and acknowledge their determination and resilience in achieving their dreams.

One such recipient was See Mu Paw. See Mu is 18 years old and currently in her final year at Dickson College where she is studying to attain the ACT Year 12 Certificate. Gentle and caring, she is an active member of the Refugee Bridging Program. Before moving to a refugee camp in Thailand, See Mu had spent her young life in a small village in Burma. From the camp in Thailand, See Mu and her family settled in Australia in 2009. Se Mu's teachers comment on her kindness and her willingness to support others in need. She is planning to study childcare at the Canberra Institute of Technology next year. See Mu's scholarship was sponsored by Athol Morris in memory of his mother, Helen Morris. A refugee herself, Helen came to Australia before World War II, escaping the Nazi regime in 1936. The letter she wrote to Prime Minister Joseph Lyons made its way to his office via, of all places, the CSIRO. Wanting to help people in her situation, Prime Minister Lyons granted her an entry permit.

Helen's story highlights that Australia's generosity and understanding predates our commitment to the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention and the formation of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Australia was a founding member of the 1958 UNHCR executive committee and, before that, the 1951 advisory committee. This government is committed to Australia taking more refugees and has expanded the humanitarian program to 14,750 places per year. Last year we provided $50 million in funding to the UNHCR.

In my electorate of Fraser, I am proud to work with and support the work of Canberra Refugee Support and its president, Geoff McPherson, vice president, David Cran and secretary Ben Pynt; the Canberra Multicultural Community Forum; the Dickson College Refugee Bridging Program; the senior multicultural information and learning exchange; and the Refugee Resettlement Committee with president Gabriel Blair, vice president Peter Peterson and community liaison officer Bev Purnell.

World Refugee Day celebrates the contribution of refugees to Australia and other nations. This year is the 60th anniversary of the United Nations refugee convention. Today we celebrate the diversity and richness refugees have brought to our country. But today is also a sobering day because, as far as we have come and as generous as we have been, we face the new challenges of working with our regional neighbours and the UNHCR to provide humane and respectful resettlement services while ending people smuggling. Through the contribution of those who have chosen to call Australia home, refugees to Australia have brought employment and job opportunities to thousands. (Time expired)

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In rising to speak on this motion, I offer my recognition this World Refugee Day of the role refugees and migrants have played in the prosperity of our great nation. On this day I pause to think about the unbearable situation that many refugees go through when they are forced to flee their homes. I pause to think in particular of the life of my friend Malcolm. Mao ky—or Malcolm—came to this country in the early 1980s after surviving the killing fields of Cambodia. As a 10-year-old, he made the dangerous crossing with his family into Thailand and registered with the UNHCR. Malcolm came to Australia and worked hard on learning to speak English—his fourth language—before serving with the New South Wales Police Force for a decade and then later taking up his current role as an electoral officer in my office. Malcolm, like many who have come to Australia through legal channels, has made a great contribution to this country. I am proud to call him my friend.

It comes as a surprise that this motion was moved by the same member for Fremantle who only last week voted in support of the so called Malaysian solution. I understand the member for Fremantle to be a very principled person but Hansard will show and history will record for perpetuity that the member for Fremantle failed to condemn a policy which will see asylum seekers that reach Australia tagged like cattle and shipped off to Malaysia in a five-for-one people swap. If the coalition had even considered such an extreme and inhumane plan as the Malaysian solution there would have been riots in the streets. However, the member for Fremantle cannot cleanse her conscience by supporting the Malaysian solution one day and then moving this motion the next.

This motion calls for the return of bipartisanship in support of a reasoned, principled and facts-based approach to the issue of asylum seekers and refugees. Really? Does the member for Fremantle really think that Labor's Malaysian solution, which she supports, is a reasoned, principled and facts-based approach to the issue of asylum seekers and refugees? The coalition would be more than pleased if this government took a bipartisan approach by supporting the reopening of facilities on Nauru. If the member for Fremantle wants to take a facts-based approach, the fact is: Nauru worked.

Compare that with this government's abysmal policy on asylum seekers, with policy failure after policy failure. In opposition the Labor Party railed against the Howard government's asylum seeker laws and when they came to government they unravelled policies that were working. While this Prime Minister's policies have successfully destroyed the ceiling installation industry, and now she wants to destroy the manufacturing industry with a carbon tax, one of the few industries that is thriving under this government is the people-smuggler business. Look at the mess we are in from this government's policies. We have thousands crammed into overcrowded detention centres across the nation. We have police forced to use tear gas to break up riots. The Villawood detention centre has been set ablaze, causing $9 million worth of damage. Aerosol cans are banned after the construction of home-made bombs. We have had a blow-out in costs of over $1.7 billion from Labor's failed policies on asylum seekers.

And then we had the pre-election con job of the East Timor solution followed by the Prime Minister giving the excuse that she would not consider Nauru because Nauru was not a signatory to the UN convention. But last week the President of Nauru formally signed that convention, and this is despite Malaysia not being a signatory of that convention. The Prime Minister's excuse for not re-opening Nauru because it is not a signatory to the UN convention is in exactly the same league as her promise not to introduce a carbon tax. No wonder the electorate has stopped listening to this Prime Minister.

Now, we have a motion of appalling and shameful hypocrisy calling for bipartisanship. Personally, I would like to see an increase in the refugee quota so that Australia can welcome more refugees, especially the persecuted Christian Copts from Muslim countries in the Middle East. The Coptic Christians in Egypt are currently being murdered and kidnapped, and their churches are being burned and bombed, yet this Labor government remains silent to their plight. We should immediately be offering more places to Coptic Christians under our refugee quota. That would be the best way that we could all celebrate World Refugee Day.

Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.