Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader for Science) Share this | Hansard source

Yes, of course—I thank the minister for the correction. The government's claim that it is acting within the law may now be fully tested, and the fact that the High Court has decided to hear these matters with a full bench suggests that the government has a case to answer. The barrister representing the asylum seekers, Ron Merkel, says that all of the people in this case are Tamils and there is evidence that they have fled their country to escape persecution. Crucially, he submits that they have received an affidavit from this government that constitutes the first official acknowledgement that it is actually holding asylum seekers. He submits that they are being held at sea by Australian authorities and that the key issue is whether or not the relevant parts of the Migration Act allow the government to hold them within the law. Another member of the asylum seekers' legal team, Mr George Newhouse, commented in an ABC report that the issue is whether Australian law allows the government to hold people in a secret rendition location.

Labor calls on the government to come clean with this parliament and to come clean with the Australian people. We have never accepted that the government should throw away the humanitarian handbook in pursuit of what is nothing more than a political scoreboard. The government is seeking to use refugees for political purposes. In the last parliament, not a day went by when the shadow minister, now the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, would miss the opportunity to make enormous political capital about every boat that he saw coming across the horizon. There was no question then about secret operational matters that could not be discussed with the Australian people; there was no suggestion in the election period that the government was not going to provide basic information to the Australian people and to this parliament. These are all matters that have arisen subsequent to the election.

Serious questions are being asked, and the Australian people have a right to know the answers to these questions. Is this government's claim that it is acting in accordance with our international obligations justified? Criticisms of the government are not just being made in the parliament; they are not just being made by the Australian Labor Party. In fact, 53 of Australia's leading international legal experts released a statement citing their 'profound concern' with reports that asylum seekers are being subjected to rapid and inadequate screening and then promptly returned to Sri Lanka. According to these legal experts, the government's actions have raised a real risk of refoulement, placing Australia in breach of its obligations under international refugee and human rights law, including the 1951 refugees convention, the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

The fact is that we do not know if the government's claims are correct because they have not been straight with the Australian people and they have not been straight with the parliament. Now they are obliged to be straight with the High Court. The minister, Scott Morrison, must explain the process under which he has acted to determine the refugee status of these applicants. It is simply not good enough for the minister to make an assertion that he is acting within the law—there has to be a clear statement made about what the government is doing and this parliament has to have the capacity to hold the government to account particularly when it comes to the question of its capacity to act within the law.

The government is now asking asylum seekers four questions at sea—an assessment process they claim was the same as that of the previous government. That is not true. It is yet another lie by this government. What we are being told is that four arbitrary questions are being considered to be sufficient to decide whether a person is able to claim refugee status in this country. Legal scholars have noted that 'such summary procedures do not comply with minimum standards on refugee-status determination under international law', and 'holding asylum seekers on boats in this manner also amounts to incommunicado detention without judicial scrutiny.' There are other questions that the minister has to answer, apart from the question about why he constantly lies about operations and the application of refugee status—