Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Deputy Speaker Price, I should begin by congratulating you on your appointment to the Speaker's panel. We share the odd conversation in the House of Representatives, and I have been waiting for the day that I get the call from you. I must say it is a good day. I also introduce to the Federation Chamber a close friend and colleague who is with us this afternoon. He is perhaps the reason why I was a little late. He is the member for Mount Gambier, Troy Bell—a good friend and colleague who is in the House this day and over the coming days to pursue the interests of the good people of Mount Gambier and regional South Australia.

In the time I have this evening, I am going to reflect on some of my achievements in this place since September 2013 as a member of the coalition government that has delivered good government to Australia over that period. When I was elected, I committed to the people of Barker that I would work with them and alongside them to build a better Barker. I am pleased to say that, in all the things that we have done, I am confident that we are building a stronger, better, more resilient Barker. That is in the face of a one-in-100-year drought that we are experiencing at present and have experienced over the course of the last two seasons.

Since my election, I have delivered improvements in infrastructure across the electorate. As part of the then Abbott government, I committed to building the roads of the 21st century, as you did, Madam Deputy Speaker—a commitment that I continue to deliver on today. Needless to say, roads are the arteries of rural and regional Australia. They facilitate the flows of commerce and people across the vast geography of our nation. Both during the campaign and since coming to office in 2013, I have come to have an appreciation of the network across my electorate. Indeed, I travel some 100,000 kilometres a year, so, in a sense, I have a direct personal interest in the quality and safety of that interconnected road network. It is imperative to ensure better safety as well as better economic and social outcomes for my constituents. Driven by that understanding of the importance of these thoroughfares for communities across Barker, I am pleased to say that since my election in 2013 we have invested, as a government, a little over $73 million in the road network in Barker. Be it the Penola and Wireless roads intersection—which my friend and colleague the member for Mount Gambier knows well, and which he also knows is currently under construction—or the Penola bypass or upgrades to the Stuart Highway, these are roads that are improving infrastructure and productivity across the region.

I have also fought hard for infrastructure improvements through the National Stronger Regions Fund. This is a fund aimed squarely at areas of disadvantage to grow the strength and capacity of not just regional centres but of our nation in general. I thought I would take the opportunity to highlight the success we have had with respect to that program. Since my election, we have seen over $14 million invested into major projects, whether it be councils or non-incorporated associations, through the National Stronger Regions Fund. First, Naracoorte and Lucindale made a successful application for the construction of an access service road in the vicinity of Naracoorte—namely, a roundabout at $635,000. We also had Tailem Bend, an investment of $7.5 million in a motorsport park which will, effectively, bring motorsport to its zenith at Tailem Bend. It will be transformative for not only Tailem Bend but wider South Australia. The Bedford group was successful in attracting $562,000 for an additional processing plant in their facility at Mount Gambier. The Bedford group, and Bedford industries in Mt Gambier, provides employment opportunities for those with a disability. As someone who has a family member that suffers from a disability, it was particularly rewarding to attend that facility and announce funding which would provide for 18 full-time-equivalent positions for people with a disability and three supervisor positions. The Mid Murray Council was successful in attracting close to three-quarters of a million dollars for funding for the Mid Murray Maritime River Trail, which will provide the capacity for paddle-steamers to travel from Mannum to Morgan and return, and there is an opportunity down the track to work closely with the Rural City of Murray Bridge to enable them to progress downriver.

Regarding the Rural City of Murray Bridge, there is a $1.7 million commitment to turn a particular portion of that city into a regional cultural hub. It will transform the presentation of the inner CBD of Murray Bridge, and I know the community of Murray Bridge, the local council and the proponent are very excited. They made that application in the hope that they would be successful, but, in all honesty, I think they were quite surprised that the application met with approval. Those are sometimes the sweetest wins—the ones that you perhaps do not expect.

While I am talking about wins that you sometimes do not expect, the community of the Riverland, and Berri Barmera Council in particular, have been running campaigns consistently for 20 years for a sports precinct in Berri—an indoor basketball stadium. When I rang the mayor and told him he had been successful in the most recent round—round 2 of the National Stronger Regions Fund—he was almost moved to tears, as were many of the users of the current, clapped-out facilities. That is a $3.5 million investment which has, quite frankly, re-energised the community in the Riverland. As you know, Madam Deputy Speaker Price, because you, unfortunately, have to listen to me during question time, that community has experienced some very tough times as a result of the millennium drought. These are communities that have lived through zero or very low water allocations. These are communities that have seen farmers having to walk away from land they have invested in heavily, or land that their parents or grandparents established as part of the original irrigation schemes. To be able to come into those communities, partner with those communities and say to those communities, 'We want to invest in your community,' and develop capital—particularly in the form of social capital—to ensure there is resilience and sustainability for those communities is, quite frankly, one of the highest privileges in this place.

Talking about achievements—and I will have more to say and more opportunities to speak in this place over the course of the next few months, I hope—I want to point out one issue, and that is mobile black spot telephony. Round 1 of that program, as you would know, Madam Deputy Speaker, was a $100 million dollar allocation. Round 2, which is currently open, is a $60 million allocation. Sadly, the people of South Australia were dudded through round 1. We had a state government who have now admitted that they did not appreciate the significance of making a co-contribution. Unlike the Western Australian government, unlike the New South Wales government, unlike the Victorian government, unlike the good government of Queensland, the South Australian state government failed to make a contribution to this scheme. The net effect, of course, was that of the close to 500 towers that were allocated for upgrade, South Australian received a meagre 11. Of those, I received—that is, the people of Barker received—two. Barker is the size of Croatia. It is not nearly the size of Durack, Madam Deputy Speaker Price, but it is a large tract of land. Quite frankly, of the allocation, to receive two of 500 was unsatisfactory. That is why I am working with the member for Grey, who also has a specific interest in this as well, to ensure that what we end up with, as a result of round 2, a significant investment by the South Australian state government which results in a disproportionate number of sites in South Australia.

I am hoping to meet with the minister with responsibility in South Australia, Minister Maher. He has been a bit reluctant. We are hoping we will be able to encourage him to make a co-contribution. If he does not, he will fail the people of South Australia just like the state government did in round 1.

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

I was preselected to run for Labor in the federal seat of Fremantle while I was still working for the United Nations overseas. One of the main motivations for coming back to Australia to stand for parliament was to help to improve asylum seekers policy that had for so long been misused by the government of Prime Minister John Howard for cynical political purposes.

On my first day back to Australia on 20 June 2007, I gave a speech in the Fremantle Town Hall to mark World Refugee Day. I had worked a lot with refugees during my time with the UN, especially in Kosovo and Gaza. I had seen Kosovars streaming back from neighbouring countries to their burnt-out homes in Kosovo to live in tents in the middle of the harshest winter on record. I worked with Palestinian refugees in the Middle East who had been forced from their homes in 1948 and 1967 and who were living in appallingly dire conditions for decades in the hope that they would one day return to their homes.

Most refugees are currently living in neighbouring countries. Why? For some it is because they do not have the resources to go any further. But, mostly, it is because they want to go home as soon as circumstances will allow. Far from the cynical reasoning of many in the West that asylum seekers are people who are really just seeking a better life, my own UN experiences told me that people do not leave or stay away from their homes where they were born and grew up, where they have their own culture, food and language, where their loved ones are, without very good reason. It is only when circumstances are so hopeless in their home country, or in the place they have fled to, that people will look further afield for safety.

The former President of Latvia Vaira Vike-Freiberga said:

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.

It seems that in the last decade and a half, we as a nation have forgotten the lessons of World War II—the direct connection with suffering that led Australia to be the sixth signatory to The Refugee Convention that brought it into force.

Most of the world's 60 million refugees are being hosted in poor neighbouring countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, and increasingly in Europe. Lebanon, a small country of four million people, is hosting more than two million Syrian refugees—half of its population again. It would be the equivalent of 12 million people turning up on Australia's doorstep. Against such numbers, our commitment of some 13,000 humanitarian places is not nearly as generous as our political leaders would have the community believe. Of the additional 12,000 Syrian refugees that Australia is supposed to be taking, only 26 have arrived in Australia so far. This is pitiful.

Even worse is the deliberate policy of cruelty that defines our offshore detention system, together with the mantra that no-one who arrives by boat will ever be resettled in Australia. What a mockery this makes of our commitments to the UN refugee convention, which is very clear in saying that asylum seekers must not be punished for the manner of their arrival. What a mockery it makes of our commitment to the international rule of law, which we are fond of quoting at the Chinese when it comes to their island-building activities in the South China Sea. What a mockery it makes of our claim to be a good international citizen and respecter of human rights and therefore entitled to a seat at the UN Human Rights Council. It is telling that in his first speech in the role the current UN Human Rights High Commissioner, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, made a specific reference to Australia as follows:

Australia's policy of off-shore processing for asylum seekers arriving by sea, and its interception and turning back of vessels, is leading to a chain of human rights violations, including arbitrary detention and possible torture following return to home countries. It could also lead to the resettlement of migrants in countries that are not adequately equipped. …

… … …

… Human rights are not reserved for citizens only, or for people with visas. They are the inalienable rights of every individual, regardless of his or her location and migration status.

In an article titled 'Eroding human rights in Australian foreign policy, one asylum seeker at a time', Human Rights Watch Deputy Asia Director, Phil Robertson, recently wrote:

Australia is rarely pushing for rights-respecting solutions these days – and more than that, is too often part of the problem. Politicians trapped in the refugee policy dialogue in Canberra frequently fail to recognise that Australia’s boat push-back policies, and offshoring asylum seekers into abusive conditions of detention in Nauru and on Manus Island, are seen as a green-light by Asian governments to do the same: …

… … …

By soliciting governments to help stop boats, Australia also ends up looking the other way on other rights abuses. By cooperating with Australia to take back boats of their nationals, both Sri Lanka and Vietnam know they could count on Australia not to publicly raise concerns about the rights abuses that drove those people into the boats in the first place. …

… … …

Meanwhile, Cambodia is laughing all the way to the bank with at least $55m of Australia’s taxpayer dollars for taking just five refugees so far from Nauru. All this for a deal that the UN high commissioner for refugees termed “a worrying departure from international norms” of refugee protection.

In the time I have been in parliament Australia's position has become demonstrably worse and far more hypocritical. Whereas Prime Minister Howard made little attempt to hide the cruel nature of his policies and, rather, sought to demonise asylum seekers as queue jumpers, people who would throw their own children overboard and potential terrorists, the present generation of politicians on both sides use the cloak of humanitarian language to justify the policies, with the appalling exceptions of the former immigration minister, who, among other things, wrongfully accused Save the Children staff on Nauru of coaching asylum seekers to fabricate abuse stories, and the present minister, who, without foundation, recently suggested that refugees on Nauru may self-harm or harm their children in order to get to Australia. But, for the most part, they claim, we are saving people from drowning at sea and we are stopping the evil people smugglers. Isn't it extraordinary that the government denounces evil people smugglers while at the same time paying them to take people in the other direction? This is a crime under both domestic and international law.

In relation to saving people from drowning at sea, it is firstly nonsense to say that you are going to punish one group of people who have already arrived by boat in order to deter another potential group of people from getting on a boat. Would it not be far more constructive to create the conditions in origin and transit countries that would mean people do not need to get on boats in the first place? This is what a genuine regional protection framework is about.

Secondly, how do you deter people who have no other option? Those who come to Australia by boat could not get here in any authorised way. If you are Afghani or Rohingya you stand almost no chance of being granted a visa by Australia if you apply for one or of being resettled to Australia through UNHCR, even if you are proved to be a refugee. You could wait in the so-called queue for 100 years and still not be allowed to come. Many of these people, knowing the risks of boat travel, will still take this chance of getting to Australia by the only means open to them, because they are escaping the unsafe conditions at home and the unsafe conditions in transit countries, where they have no right to work and no access to health or education services and where they could be sent home any time.

Thirdly, is there no limit to the cruelty to be imposed on people in the name of deterrence? It seems that not even proven murder, suicide and widespread raping and attacking of asylum seekers and refugees is sufficient to cause a change in policy or to implement something as basic and essential to good governance as independent oversight. In his new book, The Shock of Recognition, Barry Jones describes the situation of refugees detained without evidence or right of appeal, being 'nameless, faceless and without an identity', as 'straight from the world of Kafka'. The government denies any responsibility for what happens in PNG and on Nauru while simultaneously building the detention centres, hiring and paying the detention centre operators and managing everything that goes on in those places.

Last year, the government made amendments to the Migration Act that were, unfortunately, supported by the Labor opposition, in which it retrospectively absolved itself of responsibility for everything that has happened on Manus and Nauru since August 2012. The High Court recently upheld that law as constitutional. Why? It is not because the government is really behaving in a decent manner despite all evidence to the contrary; it is because there are virtually no human rights protections in the Australian Constitution and the parliament has the power to make laws on any matter, no matter how draconian. This is why many people have been calling for a bill of rights or a human rights act, Australia being the only Western democracy without one. Of course, regardless of the domestic legal position, under international law Australia cannot contract out its legal responsibilities and remains responsible for the plight of people it sends to Manus and Nauru.

I would like to conclude with some words from my famous constituent Tim Winton's extraordinary Palm Sunday speech last year:

… we live now as hostages to our lowest fears.

…   …   …

To those who say this matter is resolved, I say no … A settlement built on suffering will never be settled. An economy built on cruelty is a swindle. A sense of comfort built upon the crushed spirits of children is but a delusion that feeds ghosts and unleashes fresh terrors.

…   …   …

We're losing our way. We have hardened our hearts. I fear we have devalued the currency of mercy. Children have asked for bread and we gave them stones. So turn back. I beg you. For the children's sake. For the sake of this nation's spirit. Raise us back up to our best selves. Turn back while there's still time.