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

I present the explanatory to the bill and I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I seek leave to table an explanatory memorandum relating to the bill.

Leave granted.

I table the explanatory memorandum and seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speech read as follows—

MIGRATION AMENDMENT (PROTECTING BABIES BORN IN AUSTRALIA) BILL 2014

As I stand here today and introduce this Bill, dozens of newborn babies and their parents anxiously await their imminent deportation to Australia's offshore detention centres. These babies, however, were not born in their parents' home country, they were born here in Australia. These babies did not enter Australia by sea or by air, they were born safely on Australian soil and this is where they should remain.

This is not purely a question of policy nor is it simply political; it is in fact a question of morality. We have an obligation to provide these children with the safety and protection they need and deserve. We must find common ground and ensure that these children are provided with the best start in life. This cannot be achieved if we send them offshore to be detained in immigration detention.

These children and their families are already here in Australia, therefore the argument that this policy acts as a deterrence is void. They are here, they were born in Australia, and they deserve to be cared for and protected from further harm. Offshore detention is no place for a child to grow up. The best option for these children is to be able to stay in Australia with their parents while their claims for protection are assessed.

Australia made a commitment to protect and uphold the basic rights of children when it signed the Convention on the Rights of the Child in December 1990. Australia agreed that any laws or actions affecting children should put their best interests first and benefit them in the best possible way. Australia is currently falling short of this obligation by deporting and detaining newborn babies and their siblings in the Nauru offshore detention centre.

We know that the wellbeing of these children is compromised every day we leave them languishing in detention. The detention environment is not conducive to a caring and protective family life and the opportunities for these children to have access to the things that most of us believe children should have, such as a proper education, play, a sense of safety, is unachievable.

Many reports have shown that a child's development is significantly hampered by the negative impacts of detention. The psychological and psychiatric damage is long term and consistent.

It is important that we reflect on how the policies of today impact on the wellbeing and welfare of innocent children. This Bill will ensure that the rights of children who are born in Australia to asylum seeker parents are upheld and protected.

The Bill amends the Migration Act 1958 (The Act) to ensure that a child who is born in Australia is not classified to have 'entered Australia by sea' and is therefore not an 'unauthorised maritime arrival' subject to transfer to Australia's offshore detention centres.

History will judge us here in this place on how we respond to this moral, yet highly politically charged, issue. On the matter of protecting children and newborn babies we can make a small but life changing step that will protect them from further harm. I believe that one part of this vexed issue that most of us can agree on is that we must protect these children, whose only crime was being born to parents who fled their homeland in search of safety, from further damage and abuse.

I commend this Bill to the Senate.

I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.