Andrew Wilkie (Clark, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I am again introducing the Refugee Protection Bill 2019, which I tabled earlier in the year during the last parliament as well as an earlier version in June 2018, because there is still no sustainable long-term plan for refugee protection from either the coalition or the Labor Party.

Confining people for an indefinite period of time, whether it be on Christmas Island, in Nauru or on Manus, was never a lawful, ethical or affordable policy. It's grossly inhuman, breaches international human rights and refugee law, shirks Australia's global and regional responsibilities and is outrageously expensive.

Remember, under Australia's current policy we have confined people indefinitely for years, including many children from time to time. These are mostly people who have committed no crime, people who are vulnerable and traumatised, people who have been separated from their families for years and years, and people who came to our country seeking protection under international law.

The physical and mental suffering of these people cannot be understated. Indeed, under the medivac legislation, where people can only be transferred for urgent medical treatment to save their lives, over 130 applications have already been approved, with many more applications pending. That's a lot of gravely-ill people, and many of them sick because of the way they have been treated in Australia's offshore detention. Twelve people have died. In this context, it simply beggars belief that the government is ignoring the advice of Australian medical professionals and wants to repeal medivac.

It is deeply shocking how brazenly the government, and the opposition, ignore the international laws and standards that Australia helped create. How dare the parliament ignore the fact that successive Australian governments signed up to the refugee convention, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. No wonder we're singled out and criticised by the United Nations and other organisations—proof positive that we've lost the moral authority we once enjoyed.

And the cost of all this? Between 2013 and 2016, Australia's network of offshore detention gulags cost the taxpayer $9.6 billion. According to figures published just year, the annual cost of offshore detention continues to be a staggering $573,000 per person—reaching approximately $340 million each year.

We can, and must, do better. To that end I've recently written to the Prime Minister asking him to take up New Zealand's offer to resettle refugees from Nauru and Manus Island. Surely these people have been suffering too long. Instead of treating them as political footballs, we need to relocate them immediately as a way through this impasse. And then we need bipartisan support to implement the Refugee Protection Bill, which is before the House today, because this bill would finally provide a sustainable, humane and equitable response to the protection and processing of asylum seekers and refugees in the Asia-Pacific region.

In essence, this bill is the enabling legislation for Australia to commence the process of seeking to establish the Asia-Pacific asylum seeker solution, or APASS. This would be a genuine regional solution, developed in accordance with international human rights law and UNHCR guidelines, based on a regional framework for the registration, processing and settlement of asylum seekers and refugees. Importantly, it would build on existing forums, such as the Bali Process, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the Asian Dialogue of Forced Migrations. In outline, the bill would facilitate the establishment of a network of centres located in and run by Asia-Pacific countries, where asylum seekers could go to be registered, have their immediate humanitarian needs met and lodge a preference for country of resettlement. If the asylum seeker selects Australia and it's within the specified quota, their claim would be assessed in Australia with appropriate oversight, limited time frames and judicial review. The bill does not allow mandatory detention.

It's important that Australia is seen to take the initiative here because Australia's current deterrence based policies have placed so much pressure on neighbouring countries. This is why Australia must act first to amend its own domestic laws to fit with APASS in order to gain trust within the region. This was one of the reasons I was deeply disappointed by Labor's response to constituents regarding previous versions of this bill, where Labor claimed it was, 'Seeking to dictate to our regional neighbours how to manage asylum seeker populations' and 'Commits regional nations to actions without their consent or engagement'. What a load of rubbish! If Labor had bothered to read the bill, they'd see that a fundamental principle of APASS is cooperation and respect for the sovereignty of each member country as well as being alert to the difficulties and priorities of refugee protection for each country involved. No wonder the community is confused about Labor's asylum seeker policy when Labor criticises the government's policy despite helping create it and promising to maintain it and then turns around and criticises the viable APASS alternative.

In closing, I'd simply add that this bill incorporates into domestic law multiple international instruments to which Australia is already a signatory. These instruments as well as the principle of family unity and the principle of the best interest of the child are paramount to the development of the APASS framework. Crucially, this bill abolishes unlawful mandatory detention of asylum seekers and refugees. It removes the abhorrent and torturous conditions that asylum seekers and refugees currently experience under Australian law in both onshore and offshore detention. It provides an alternative to detention, allowing asylum seekers to live in the community, and clearly states that any detention must be, in Australia, lawful, necessary and proportionate and for the shortest time possible. And any immigration detention is subject to ongoing judicial review and will be independently monitored on a regular basis.

Finally, I'd remind everyone in this space that we need to stop talking about asylum seekers and refugees as a threat to national security and start recognising that Australia has a legal and moral obligation to give protection to asylum seekers, to quickly hear their claims and to provide permanent refuge if those claims are correct. I commend this bill to the House. And, in my remaining time, I invite the member for Indi to make a short contribution.

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Helen Haines (Indi, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to second the Refugee Protection Bill proposed by the member for Clark, and I do so knowing that so many people of my electorate of Indi and so many people of Australia stand beside me. I believe this because this is the issue on which I receive the most correspondence and personal calls for action from the people in my electorate, and the people are calling for a better response than what our leaders have given us.

The Rural Australians for Refugees Group, that is so active in my community, has called on me to work with this parliament to do better, and I am committed to doing just that. For too long in this country we have been sold the idea by our successive governments that to be kind we must be cruel, that if we want to avoid people drowning at sea we must detain those who don't. We've been told that if we want to end people smuggling then we must keep people who arrive by boat in indefinite detention. But we know, as evidenced by the large number of people arriving by plane, people are still coming and will continue to come. Offshore indefinite detention is a cruel stopgap that should have been dismantled long ago and replaced with a system that actually creates a fair, orderly process that gets people safely and quickly settled into our communities.

People I meet are devastated by what we've become. They want better than this. They want better than this because so many of us see ourselves in these people—convicts forced to board boats to Sydney, Jewish people leaving Europe as fascism dawned, the Vietnamese evacuating Saigon, the South Sudanese fleeing the war with their northern neighbours. Australians want a better solution, because when we see people in these camps we see ourselves. And we know that, much as they deserve better, we deserve better.

Australians want a nation that has control of its sea borders but does not leave desperate people to languish indefinitely in prisons. The Asia-Pacific asylum seeker solution does both of these things at once by creating a network of centres across the region. People no longer have an incentive to risk their lives on boats. By enabling people to apply at these centres we have a single, virtual queue where we are completely in control over who is granted asylum to this country.

As an Independent, I see my role as advocating for sensible, compromised policies that reflect what Australians actually want their politicians to do. This is an elegant law that meets the objectives of the government without debasing the fairness and egalitarianism that mark us out as Australians. I commend the bill to the House.

Debate adjourned.