Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of answers given by the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs (Senator Vanstone) to questions without notice asked by opposition senators today relating to skills shortages and to detention practices.

What we heard today at question time really misses the point of the debate. The minister had the opportunity to bring all her colleagues to heel, but what we have found is that the government is still very much divided on this issue. And no wonder, when you look at the issues that were brought before the committee that looked into the Migration Amendment (Designated Unauthorised Arrivals) Bill 2006. What a name. Most submissions and witnesses before the Senate Legal and Constitutional Legislation Committee put to the committee that the bill represents a flawed domestic policy in a number of key areas, it breaches Australia’s obligations under international law, particularly under the refugee convention of 1951, and it represents deficient foreign policy in terms of a perceived attempt to appease Indonesia over situations in West Papua.

Perhaps it is worth while explaining briefly what the bill does. This bill provides what this government brought in in 2001, which was the Pacific solution. It will mean that the offshore processing regime will apply to all persons arriving on mainland Australia unlawfully by sea. It does not try to differentiate as to whether those persons arrive by canoe, cargo ship or cruise liner. But I suspect the minister will sort that out, using her own discretion.

Therein lies one of the problems. The bill will also cover certain air arrivals, where a person travels most of the way to Australia by sea but travels the last leg by air. So we have got this enormous piece of legislation which will change the way these things are dealt with. We have a government report which unanimously recommends that this bill not proceed because of the matters that I have already mentioned. It is wrong. The report states:

… the Bill is an inappropriate response to what is essentially a foreign policy issue.

What this report shows is what Australians had already recognised—that is, you cannot fix this piece of legislation. There are no amendments that can be moved that will affect the law of Papua New Guinea, where people are dumped on Manus Island. The legislation is about pretending Australia has no border and dumping people in other countries. There is no way of amending Australian law to prevent that from being anything other than offensive, anything other than throwing away every single human right obligation that Australia considers part of the concept of a fair go.

We already knew Mr John Howard was willing to listen to Indonesian politicians. We now get to find out whether he is willing to listen to Australian politicians. Without exception, the Australian politicians who have been looking closely at the evidence have said that there is no way to fix this piece of legislation and the only way to fix it is in fact to vote no. It is unamendable. The majority government report went on to try to ameliorate its effects. It is irredeemable, and they know it. That is why they said at the outset that it should not be proceeded with. No matter what form the legislation ends up in, you cannot take away its effect. That involves dumping people in other countries and pretending that Australia has no borders.

There are no amendments that will cause us to end up supporting this bill. Labor will be voting against this bill. It is wrong on every count, on every point. The government knows that but they are going to persist with it. More importantly, the government backbenchers know that, and we will be interested to see how they feel about it. We have already heard today that there has been a bit of minor revolt over there—a bit of minor scurrying about—but guess what? I think that at the end of the day they will lock in, because they like their comfy zone over there and they are not prepared to take it up to Senator Vanstone and tell her that the legislation is wrong, that she should desist and that she should realise that it is a wrong piece— (Time expired)