Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

In rising to speak in this discussion today, it feels as though this debate just continues on and on. All sides, as we have heard from the government, throw away all values that they once held in relation to standing up for the rights of refugees, protecting vulnerable asylum seekers, and standing by the rule of law and our obligations under the refugee convention. We hear the coalition continuing to say that the only way to stop the boats is to turn them back, put in awful temporary protection visas and continue to lock people up indefinitely.

The fact is that both the government and the opposition colluded to put in place the policy that we have. Dumping people on Nauru and Manus Island indefinitely, taking away people's rights under family reunion, being as mean and nasty as possible, making the conditions as inhumane and as uncomfortable as possible—that is the policy that both the Labor Party and the coalition agreed to only two months ago. It was only the Greens in this place who stood here and said, 'This will not stop people from coming here.' The reality is that the fear, the terror, the conditions that people are fleeing from are so horrendous that these people will continue to flee in hope of safety and protection. Unless we give them another option, unless we give people a safer pathway—a different avenue by which to seek protection and safety—then they will continue to come.

All the Greens senators stood here during the debates on the offshore processing bill and said that this was exactly what would happen. These deterrent policies may sound nice for the media—that nice, quick grab on the six o'clock news that says you are being so nasty that people will not come here any more, notwithstanding our obligations under international law, the refugee convention, the rights of the child and the basic understanding that Australia should play by the rules that we have signed up to and that you cannot have an on-off button for when we would like to be nice and when we would not, for when we would like to play by the rules and when we do not. Every single Greens senator in this place said that this was not the way to stop people taking these dangerous boat journeys.

We were howled down in this chamber for not caring about people, yet the policy that we have before us is sending brave, courageous individuals who have had to flee some of the worst atrocities in our region—the brutality of the Taliban—to such desperate acts that they attempt to take their own life. Such was the gall of people in this place to suggest that it was the Greens who did not care about what happened to refugees. The submission that the Leader of the Greens in this place, Christine Milne, and I put to the Houston expert panel in relation to these issues outlined what all the international experts have said: if you want people to not have to take dangerous boat journeys, you have to give them a safer option.

We know that there are thousands of refugees in Malaysia and Indonesia who cannot get their cases assessed, or who are unable once they finally, if they are lucky enough, do have their cases assessed, to be resettled in a safe third country. They cannot stay in Malaysia, because it is not safe; they cannot stay in Indonesia, because they are considered to be illegal in that country. So, people-smugglers come along, pick them up, offer them a deal and they get on a boat.

Not one of the people to whom I spoke when I travelled to Indonesia to talk to refugees who were contemplating coming to Australia by boat actually wanted to take that option. They are afraid of that option—understandably: it is a dangerous journey—but they also need to be able to put their lives back together. They cannot go home because of the torture and persecution that they would face in their homeland. They take the only option that they see is available to them and, at the moment, that is coming by boat to Australia. Locking people up indefinitely on Nauru is not stopping people from having to flee war and persecution. People continue to run. They will do so until there is a safer option or another option for them to take.

Australia cannot just wipe our hands of our responsibility to these people in our region. We are amongst the wealthiest countries in our region. We have the most robust legal protection system. We have a proud history of being of one of the key nations who drafted the refugee convention when it was first established. Yet we see today the Labor Party and Tony Abbott's coalition getting together to reinstate the horrors of John Howard's Nauru and Manus Island polices. Despite the collusion, and both the major parties agreeing that that was the policy they wanted, now we see that the policy is not working and they continue to argue. This is the exact debate that we were having in this place six months ago.

And where has it got the Labor Party? They have sold out their values; they have locked up hundreds, thousands, of refugees, including children, indefinitely and in dangerous conditions. They have sent the poor souls who have been dumped in Nauru to madness. They have incited condemnation of the policy from some of the world's most eminent experts on this, including the UNHCR, including the UN Human Rights Commissioner. Where has it got the Labor Party? Nowhere, because we are back to where we were six months ago, having the coalition tell them that their polices were a failure. All for what? And it is costing the Australian taxpayer billions of dollars. They are wasting billions of dollars on a policy that does not even work.

We hear from the coalition that they do not want to take any responsibility for this policy anymore. They voted with the government, they did a deal, they colluded, they stitched it up and they pushed it through the parliament. Now it is not working and we are back to the same debate we were having only six months ago. No-one is safer. On the high seas, no-one's lives are safer. Children are terrified. We are inflicting long-term indefinite detention on young refugees and their families, creating a whole new generation of institutionalised abuse of these children—and all for what? So that the Labor Party can say that they are as tough and as mean as the coalition.

Now we have Senator Cash saying that they have to go even further, rather than taking the advice of the convention and what it actually says: implement proper policies to not force people to take those dangerous boat journeys in the first place; give them a safer pathway, an alternative. Rather than putting all of the energy into that, we have this continued spat about who can be the nastiest, the toughest and the meanest to refugees for the sake of some quick votes—cheap, dirty, grubby votes—at the next election.