Melissa Parke (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

One of the most disturbing aspects of this government is the ever-increasing trend towards secrecy and away from transparency and accountability. This is especially evident in the area of immigration, where privatisation and militarisation combine to prevent details of asylum seekers arriving by boat and of the operations of onshore and offshore immigration detention centres being made public, due to so-called 'commercial in confidence' or 'on-water national security' matters. Applications that would previously have been determined within a humanitarian or migration framework are now viewed through a security, even a military, lens, with the associated secrecy, as well as the stigma that attaches in the public mind.

We have had overwhelming evidence presented at parliamentary hearings and to a number of inquiries, including the Australian Human Rights Commission and the Moss review, regarding the horrific abuse of asylum seekers, including women and children, at detention centres on Manus and Nauru. There have been a number of deaths, through murder, suicide and negligence, yet the government's response is to attack the whistleblowers and refuse all forms of accountability, including prohibiting media access and independent oversight of these facilities.

The government is presently endeavouring to abolish the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner and to make it harder and more expensive for the community to obtain information from government. The government has withdrawn Australia from the Open Government Partnership, joining Russia as the only other country to do so. It has defunded community organisations engaging in advocacy, whether on the environment, homelessness or health. It has engaged in secret negotiations on the TPP, which will have far-reaching consequences for future governments' ability to regulate in the public interest. This is the very opposite of open and accountable government.