Ged Kearney (Cooper, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Skills) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was recently very pleased to be invited to have lunch with residents at an organisation called Baptcare Sanctuary. The sanctuary do incredible work in assisting people seeking asylum to access the essentials. They put a roof over their heads, they work with Foodbank to provide them with food and they assist them in accessing medical and mental health treatment when they need it. The work they do is quite unique.

As we know all too well, asylum seekers have seen their rights stripped away after six long years of coalition government, six years in which punitive, cruel policy has filled the agendas of those opposite. Their policies have left people seeking asylum without support to find housing. They've left many people without working rights, without access to Medicare. In many cases, this government's punitive policies are leading to worsening mental health and further trauma. The sector has seen quite clearly that this government are seeking to abandon these people, to cause them further harm and to repudiate their obligations to assist people in need.

This is where organisations such as Baptcare Sanctuary come in. They see the government is failing to fulfil its obligations and they step up to the mark. The sanctuary is home to many people who are yet to have their claims for humanitarian protection visas finalised. The sanctuary is there for them when the government is not. When the government refuses to give them access to housing, the sanctuary serves as their home. When the government refuses to give them access to working rights, whilst also refusing to give them social security payments, the sanctuary and Foodbank provide them with a warm meal. When the government refuses to give them access to Medicare, to adequate and accessible health care, the sanctuary steps in to connect them with doctors who generously provide pro bono health services.

The work that Baptcare Sanctuary does is vital, but it shouldn't be. It shouldn't be the case that these people could be homeless without this service. There shouldn't be discrepancies in the system that mean one person in the sanctuary is given access to health care, while someone else who arrived a month later has to rely on the generosity of pro bono services. These people shouldn't have to languish without work rights, without a way to support themselves or their families. They should be shown the respect they deserve and they should have access to the essential services that they need.

The government is causing these people trauma. It is leaving people for years in a system that tells them nothing and that gives them no certainty and no hope of a timely status resolution. Instead they are left to wonder whether they'll be sent back to danger or whether the funding will run out and they'll be left without food, without shelter. I am so grateful that services like the sanctuary exist, but they shouldn't have to exist. This government has a responsibility to provide these people with the care and the respect that they are entitled to and that they deserve. The history books are being written as we watch, and I can assure those who remain complicit that their actions will not be forgotten.