Steve Hutchins (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to take dispassionate note of Senator Vanstone’s answer to my question this afternoon in relation to the current debate on refugees. I would also like to comment on some of the statements made by Senator Ronaldson and just lately by Senator McGauran. I remind the chamber that we on this side of parliament had to hear ad nauseam only a few years ago the Prime Minister—and Senator Webber rightly quoted him—saying, ‘We will decide who comes to this country and we will decide the circumstances under which they come.’ Yet one could hardly not come to the conclusion in relation to the events over the last few months that, as a result of significant pressure from the Indonesian government, we are about to embark on a course that will change our migration/refugee policy.

Last week, you, of all people, Mr Deputy President Hogg, would be aware that there was significant lobbying done in relation to the Australian Capital Territory’s civil union legislation. Concern was expressed by a number of people who were uncomfortable with that legislation and about how to vote on the disallowance of it. During the lead-up to that debate, I received not one representation from a member of any particular church or faith. I never received a phone call from a bishop, a priest, a nun or a brother to lobby me one way or the other on that particular piece of legislation. However, since it became clear that the government was going to introduce this proposed migration legislation, I have been lobbied significantly by members of the clergy of all Christian denominations, not just my own faith of Catholicism, who are extremely concerned about the direction the government is taking with the proposed asylum seeker laws.

I would like to remind the chamber what the granting of asylum is about. It is meant to be a humanitarian act; it is not meant to be a political statement. If the government go back to that single premise, that is where they can probably extricate themselves from the difficulty that they have got into at the moment. We have all seen the report of the Senate Legal and Constitutional Legislation Committee and its recommendations: unanimous in the position they are taking on this proposed migration legislation. They say that the proposal is irredeemable in its current form. Why wouldn’t it be?

As I have said, I have had representations from various church groups, let alone all the other groups in our Commonwealth, about this proposed legislation. The legislation places asylum seekers beyond the reach of Australian law. Once again, it puts women and children in detention. It allows for indefinite detention. There will no longer be, as I understand it, case-managed mental health. There will be no professional assistance available to those people. There will be no visitors or charitable or religious assistance available to them. The Commonwealth Ombudsman loses oversight when they are sent to these islands for processing. There is no access for these men, women and children to the Refugee Review Tribunal or Australian courts for a judicial review. The people who are processed offshore are treated differently.

We are signatories to the 1951 convention on the status of refugees. We are one of the countries who signed it in that period. Nauru is not a signatory to that protocol. We do not even know what visa conditions these people will be subject to when they go offshore to these islands. They are subject to those islands’ visa conditions, not anything that we put there. In fact, I think it was only reported last week in the Age that ASIO agents tried to go to Nauru and they were refused entry. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.