Kylea Tink (North Sydney, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I rise to present the Migration Amendment (Limits on Immigration Detention) Bill 2023.

To explain it, however, I need to take you back to the period preceding Christmas 2014.

At that time, I was working with a motivated and compassionate group of Australians who could no longer sit silently as our government arbitrarily and indefinitely detained children in offshore detention centres.

Approximately 730 children were being held then in what can only be described as open-air prisons in conditions that would be unbelievable to many Australians. Shockingly, they were being held by our government, in our name.

These children had had their eyeglasses taken away, along with the medicines they had arrived with.

They had no basic human comforts: no fresh clothes, toys or opportunities to play in a playground.

They weren't even offered basic health care or education.

Many had been there with their families for months, if not years, and, with reports of children as young as 10 attempting suicide, people like me could not accept our country making children collateral damage for domestic politics.

The 'We're Better Than This Australia' campaign brought people from all walks of life together to call on our then government to release these children before Christmas.

I want to particularly acknowledge the people who asked me to join them in that endeavour and to thank them—for their work, and for shaping my humanitarian advocacy and ultimately this piece of legislation.

To Steve Gray, Rose Scott, Ngareta Rosweu, John Bevins, Bryan Brown and David Steindl then—thank you.

The Migration Amendment (Limits on Immigration Detention) Bill 2023 then does two things.

Firstly, it introduces a 90-day limit on immigration detention.

This limit can only be extended if the minister decides that, having regard to principles of international law, an extended period of detention is necessary as a last resort, reasonable and proportionate.

Importantly, however, the bill also provides any extension of detention by the minister is reviewable by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT).

I present this bill today and invite the government to accept it as it is consistent with the policy reform they themselves have said they will pursue—limiting immigration detention to 90 days.

Every day we delay is another day a person is left languishing. There is no place for indefinite detention in our modern democracy.

Secondly, while it seems extraordinary that this would even be necessary, this bill prohibits the detention of minors, in accordance with our human rights obligations.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child contains numerous rights relevant to child refugees that Australia currently blatantly denies through immigration detention.

The obligations to make all decisions in the best interests of the child (article 3), to not separate children from their families (article 9), to protect children from all forms of violence and abuse (article 19), and for special protections for children who either are refugees or are seeking refugee status (article 22) are not currently honoured by our detention regime.

Australia has a responsibility to protect the human rights of all seeking asylum on our shores, regardless of how or where they arrive.

These rights are not optional. We do not get to decide when we uphold them, nor for whom. Indeed, setting them aside in any circumstance is a slippery and dangerous notion.

Australia's immigration regime is unique in the world: uniquely cruel, and a unique denial of basic human rights.

There have been at least 37 suicides related to immigration detention in the last 10 years alone.

In the same period, it is estimated the regime has cost the Australian taxpayer $9.7 billion with offshore processing expected to cost us $485 million in this year.

We have not only been diminished as a nation; but all of us, in whose name successive governments have acted, have been reduced on a fundamental human level.

Ten years ago, the then immigration department aimed to process applications for onshore protection visas within 90 days.

Yet as of March this year, the longest a person has been held in detention is 5,766 days—or nearly 16 years.

And in Australia right now, the 70,000 people waiting for decisions can expect to wait an average of:

By comparison it takes just 55 days for a claim to be processed in the United States and 14 days in Canada.

Faster turnarounds are possible, and as a nation it is time we began striving to achieve them.

This is not to say that everyone who arrives here seeking refuge should be granted it, but what this legislation will ensure is that they would not be simply left languishing, uncertain of whether they were coming or going.

I acknowledge we have seen some progress in recent times. But we have so much more to do.

Of the 19,000 temporary protection visa and safe haven enterprise visa holders eligible for permanency, only 6,388 permanent visas had been issued as of August this year.

After years of advocacy calling for the end of offshore processing, the introduction of the Migration Amendment (Aggregate Sentences) Bill 2023 reauthorised offshore immigration detention on Nauru, and this was devastating.

We have publicly witnessed the inhumane policies of hotel detention, and I acknowledge the advocacy of Mostafa 'Mos' Azimitabar today.

As he said, just because it's lawful does not make it right.

In recent weeks then, the Australian High Court has passed a judgement that indefinite immigration detention in unlawful, and this is a win for human rights.

But the political propaganda has already come on thick and fast.

It is reprehensible that this ruling should be used as a pawn for political gain, and the new laws, developed in response to that political posturing, are already being challenged in the High Court less than a week after they were rushed through parliament.

By contrast, today's bill has been in the works for a long time.

For decades now, some of the bravest advocates have been calling for a just immigration system in this country: one that reflects the human rights obligations Australia owes, and I add my voice to their calls today.

In the words of the remarkable Zaki Haidari, refugee and advocate, 'If Australia wants to shape the world for the better, it must start at home.'

I commend this bill to the House and I cede three minutes to my seconder.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Zoe Daniel (Goldstein, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion. Modern Australia was built on the back on immigration. For decades, we welcomed hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world, provided them with support, gave them jobs, got their children educated and looked after their health and their broader welfare. For example, Australia has the highest concentration per capita of Holocaust survivors in the world outside Israel—most pertinent to remember at this terrible time in global history. We're a better nation for it. So, what changed? Why is it that one person has been held in detention for nearly 16 years when, a decade ago, the immigration authorities stated that their aim was to process applications for onshore protection visas within 90 days? Why is it taking close to 2½ years for the Department of Home Affairs to make its initial assessment when it's less than two months in the US and just a fortnight in Canada?

I would say it all goes back to that day in August 2001 when MV Tampa heaved into view off Christmas Island. At that moment, the last shreds of bipartisanship in refugee policy were tossed overboard. From then on, it's been one wedge after another. It has to stop. This bill, the Migration Amendment (Limits on Immigration Detention) Bill 2023, presented by the member for North Sydney, is a start. I, for one, am here for it. I will not be wedged, and nor will the community that I represent. In voting for me, they were voting for more humane treatment of refugees and asylum seekers.

It is Labor policy that there be a 90-day limit on immigration detention. Yet here we are, halfway through this term of parliament, and progress has been limited, to say the least. Whether or not a 90-day limit comes into effect, there may be a way through this: an independent panel for detention review, similar to state and territory parole boards, that could make recommendations to the minister for immigration applying to all people in immigration detention. An independent panel would be an effective interim non-legislative solution which could be introduced immediately, would be consistent with Labor policy and would ensure that immigration detention complies with Australia's international obligations, that there are alternatives to detention and that detention is only applied as a measure of last resort.

There is precedent for this: the Independent Reviewer of Adverse Security Assessments, set up in 2012.

Members on the government benches should live up to the promise of their party platform and support this bill. They should support the member for North Sydney's timely private member's bill and allow it to be brought to a vote. I congratulate my fellow crossbencher and I commend this bill to the House.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time allocated 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.