Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

To summarise, we have heard lots of nice-sounding statements from everybody that under no circumstances would they ever allow somebody to be sent back to somewhere where they face persecution. Most of the Liberal Party speakers, quite rightly, proudly clasped to their bosom the record of the Fraser government and the way they treated asylum seekers who came here. They then proceeded to completely trash the whole approach the Fraser government took and said that anybody who took that approach would be compromising the integrity of our borders, opening the floodgates and giving comfort to people smugglers. They cannot have it both ways. Do they think the Fraser government did the right thing or not? How can they possibly keep saying, ‘We have a proud record, look at what Fraser did,’ and then defend the current policy which is the absolute antithesis of what Malcolm Fraser did and which, as you all know, he is fiercely critical of?

I do not particularly blame the government speakers, because they are being fed totally dishonest propaganda from the office of the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship and his department. Senator Mason said there has been no objection to how people were processed on Nauru. That is ludicrous. There have been extraordinarily severe objections. It is because of those objections that legislation last year which sought to expand the Pacific solution was rejected by the Senate. There is ample evidence that we have sent people back to face persecution and that we have breached these conventions. That is why the Australian Democrats are so concerned that we again have public musings from government ministers. We have the immigration minister and the Minister for Foreign Affairs umming and ahing: ‘We might send them to Nauru; we might send them to Indonesia; we’re seeking assurances that they won’t send them back.’ Why are we doing that? Why are we subcontracting something as fundamental as checking people’s claims about persecution—people who are fleeing a civil war? India has 100,000 refugees from Sri Lanka. We get 83 and suddenly we think that our borders are being compromised. It is ludicrous. (Time expired)

Question put:

That the motion (Senator Bartlett’s) be agreed to.