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

I speak today to the Migration Amendment (Visa Maximum Numbers Determinations) Bill 2013, put forward by me on behalf of the Greens, which would ensure that any capped freezes on protection visas and in fact visas as a whole under the Migration Act would need to come to parliament for approval. The reason that we have put forward this bill, of course, is that the government and the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection last week, in retaliation, in the hissy fit thrown by the minister in response to the Senate's decision not to allow the reintroduction of temporary protection visas, decided to cap the number of protection visas to be given to people who genuinely deserve them. That decision has been made outside—currently—the realms of parliament's scrutiny and the ability of parliament to have a say.

There may indeed be an argument for capping a particular number of visas. Let that argument be had, and let it be had in the chambers of parliament, where we make laws, where we can debate the merits or not of a particular decision. This bill amends the Migration Act to ensure that a decision to cap the number of visas given would need to come to the parliament in the form of a disallowable instrument, meaning that the parliament could agree or disagree with the motivations and the actions of the government of the day.

This issue has two streams. We can argue the merits of what the government has done—and I will move on to those arguments in a short time—but there is also a very fundamental point about the ability of parliament to have a good discussion and oversee these types of decisions. We have here a minister and a government who are so arrogant that they want as much power for themselves as possible to cut out the parliamentary process. They do not like the fact that they do not control both chambers of parliament, so what they do instead is find ways to circumvent the parliament, therefore circumventing the wishes and the views of the Australian people. Regardless of who has the largest number of seats in House of Representatives, that does not give them a mandate to ram through or dictate to the Senate whatever they would like to do. The role of the Senate here, Mr Acting Deputy President Fawcett, as you well know, is to scrutinise legislation, to review government decisions and to ensure that we have a space for debate over decisions of the government of the day, the executive, and really play that important role of representing the people and the diversity of views within our Australian community.

It should not be very controversial that this amendment bill go ahead. All it is saying is that decisions to cap visas should be able to be approved or disapproved by the parliament. Any minister or any government who feel absolutely confident and just in the decision that they are making should not have a problem with having that debate on the floor of the chamber. It would only be a minister who is either too arrogant or indeed hiding from the parliament and therefore the scrutiny of the public who would not want to put something to debate and to have that discussion on the floor of the parliament.

Let me just go to the issue that directly relates to why this cap put in place by the minister last week is of great concern and why the parliament should be able to have a debate about this and have a look at whether this is a good decision. We know that there are over 30,000 refugees and asylum seekers, including children, currently waiting at some stage of the process in the Australian community or in detention for whom we need to process their claims in a timely manner and give a resolution. Keeping people—individuals who have fled war, torture, persecution and brutality but have finally reached Australia and safety—living in limbo is not an approach a fair-minded, well-resourced and forward-thinking country like Australia should take. The implication of a freeze on protection visas is that these 30,000 people will remain living in limbo.

Why is that a massive concern to many in this country? The types of conditions these people are living in are atrocious. A number of them, thousands of them, are remaining in indefinite detention at a huge cost to taxpayers. As we have heard from the Treasurer, MYEFO is going to be handed down next Tuesday. I will be looking very closely at just how much of a budget blow-out there has been. My quick calculations on the back of an envelope would say that we are now spending $11 billion over the forward estimates. Here we have a significant amount of that $11 billion being spent keeping thousands of people locked up in indefinite detention because the minister of the day has decided they will not have their applications processed until he gets his way through the parliament.

The other group within this 30,000 people includes families and individuals who are living in the community on bridging visas. These types of visas were only ever meant to be the bridge—thus the name, of course—between people being in detention and having their applications for protection processed. These bridging visas are keeping people in poverty. Individuals are not allowed to work. They are not even allowed to study. They have some access to medical services, but that is quite limited. There are individuals who are absolutely desperate to start contributing to Australia's economy and society and start putting their lives back together.

We cannot forget that the majority of these people—whether their applications are still at the beginning or whether their applications have been completed and they are still waiting on bridging visas now that the minister has capped the approving and granting of permanent protection—are genuine refugees. We know that because that is always what the statistics show. Ninety-six per cent of people who come here by boat are found to be people in genuine need of protection. Having to leave your homeland and engage in the dangerous journey to get out, hiding out until you can find someone to bring you to Australia or another country—no-one takes that decision lightly. Many of these people have had to leave behind family members, their entire lives and everything they own. No-one makes that decision lightly. It is reflected in the number of people who are found to be in genuine need of protection. If, indeed, people wanted to take the 'easy way', they would probably buy a ticket and fly in on Qantas. That would be the easy way to get here. When people are really desperate, when they have to smuggle themselves and their families out of their country and struggle for survival before they reach safety, the only option they see before them is to come here by a dangerous boat.

We need to be addressing that issue. We need to be finding people a safer pathway in order to reach protection. I do not believe the only option available for the world's most vulnerable refugees should be to engage a people smuggler and get on a leaky wooden boat to Australia. That should not be the option. But currently it is. It is not going to be solved by keeping people living in limbo, in poverty, without the ability to work and without the ability to get education or training and keep themselves engaged. It definitely will not be addressed by capping and freezing protection visa applications. All that does is create a bigger bottleneck in terms of the number of people who are desperate to start putting their lives back together.

This issue of dealing with the number of incoming refugees is of course not unique to Australia. In fact, we receive the smallest number of refugees when you compare Australia to comparable countries. Less than one per cent of the world's refugees end up coming to Australia. Yet if you listen to the political rhetoric in this place and the other place, listen to the radio or read the newspapers you would think that we were taking them all. The reality is we are not. That perception is wrong. Less than one per cent of the world's refugees end up in Australia.

But of course there has been an increase of late. I just bring the chamber's attention to the fact that the United Nations and its refugee agency, the UNHCR, have made it very clear that there are more refugees in the world today than there were in 1994. We have the highest level of refugees seeking protection today since 1994. No wonder there are people coming to Australia asking for our protection.

Since 1994, 15.4 million refugees, 937,000 asylum seekers and 28.8 million people have been forced to flee their homelands. But we are talking about how to manage the claims of a mere 30,000. It is out of proportion to believe that we have to cap, and stop processing, applications for refugee status because Australia is somehow being flooded by people who are fleeing war and persecution. We are not being flooded. Yes, we want as orderly a process as we can manage. Yes, people's claims need to be checked and we need to ensure that people who deserve protection are the ones getting protection. That is absolutely the case. But the idea that punishing people by freezing their applications in order to send a message to the wider public that the coalition government has our borders under control is just ludicrous.

I will tell you a short story about the impact on an individual's life of keeping refugees locked up in indefinite detention—that is, what will be a result of this decision to cap and freeze the processing of applications. There are over 1,000 children in immigration detention on Christmas Island. We know that the impact of detention on children is severe. We know it damages their mental health and development. We know it will scar them for life. How do we know that? Because we have seen it happen before. We cannot pretend anymore that we do not know the consequences of treating people like this. We do; we have seen them before. What will end up happening, as has previously happened, is that we will create the next damaged generation. These young people—these children—will grow up. They will end up being citizens in our country and we will have scarred them for life. Long-term detention and indefinite detention are dangerous, aside from how inhumane and immoral it is to treat a child like that. The cost to Australia of processing that child and their family's refugee claim in as timely a manner as possible and, if they are genuine refugees, allowing them to resettle is far less in money terms and, obviously, in human terms. It is far better than damaging these children for the rest of their lives, which is effectively what we are doing.

Those who are living in the community on bridging visas are not allowed to work, study or do training. These people are very capable. They are very courageous: they have fled repressive regimes and brutality, whether it is the Taliban in Afghanistan or the smashing of democracy supporters in Iran. These people have done everything they can to protect their families. There is a courageous element to that. These are brave people. They have stared death in the face and said, 'We're not having that. I'm going to fight for my family and get out of here.' They get to Australia and are put on a bridging visa. Many of them are well-skilled—there are top doctors, teachers, engineers, IT specialists, tradespeople. These people are desperate to work, and we are keeping them pushed down in our community as second-class citizens and not allowing them to contribute while they stay on a bridging visa. And how long will they be on a bridging visa? There is no indication from the immigration minister of how long that will be, but we assume that it is going to be for a very long time.

It seems ludicrous to me that there is an entire group of capable people who want to work, who want to contribute and who want to be self-sufficient, and we are saying to them: 'No.' They are living in the community. They could be paying taxes, engaged in the workforce, engaged in training and preparing themselves for when they are given permanent protection visas, except we are saying, 'No. You sit there. You do nothing. We will pretend that you don't exist until the time that the immigration minister decides to lift the freeze on protection visas and starts granting protection to people who deserve it.' We are having a huge debate about the fact that regional Australia needs workers, and we are flying in temporary workers from all over the world. Yet we have right here people who have risked their entire life for a chance to start putting their lives together and contributing to a community—a society—that will respect them and keep them safe. We need to think outside the square a little bit more and engage these people in our society, engage them in work, and stop punishing them simply because they dared to flee for their life and the lives of their family.

This bill is not about granting those people refugee visas; it is about saying that the debates on these decisions, which have a profound affect on people's lives, should be discussed in this chamber and should be able to be allowed or disallowed by the parliament. To do otherwise is pure arrogance on the part of the government of the day.