Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I will quickly talk about why this is an important policy, and I think you have heard from all my fellow Greens senators today about their concerns over the mental health issues, particularly of having children—who, in this country have so much, including my children—put on an island away from the rest of the world, having left their previous life, for a long period of time with very little hope for anything different. It is quite logical to most of us who live the good life that we do in Australia and who are blessed with everything that Australians have that they would not want to put themselves in that position. Nor would they want their children to find themselves in that position. So establishing a panel to oversee health and mental health issues is critical in light of the fact that neither the UNHCR nor the IOM will be involved in managing the proposed offshore sites of Nauru and PNG. We believe that this is a solution which will help mitigate the issues that we foresee based on previous experience—the very dreadful things we have all seen on TV: self-mutilation, suicides, riots. However, it goes nowhere near far enough to solving the problem.

I would like to finish by saying that what is most important to me overall is how we respect humanity, how we uphold the standards that we expect for ourselves and our children and their future, that we actually have a more mature and honest debate about this long-term issue, and that we start managing the Australian public's expectations on this issue. We should start here in parliament and show some leadership.