Penny Wright (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak about the Migration and Maritime Powers Legislation Amendment (Resolving the Asylum Legacy Caseload) Bill 2014 and to put clearly on the record my disgust for what is an outrageously cruel bill. The content of this bill sends shivers down the spine of all Australians who care about human rights and who consider that the moral health of our nation can be judged by how we treat our fellow human beings who are most in need.

If passed, this bill will widen the immigration minister's powers, marginalise international law and the rules of natural justice and muzzle the ability of Australian courts to scrutinise the government's treatment of asylum seekers. It will also establish a new high-water mark in the cruelty Australia is willing to show to those men, women and children who come to us from persecution and violence and throw themselves on our mercy. Increasingly, our wellsprings of mercy are running completely dry.

The title of this bill refers to the legacy caseload—that is, the 30,000 people who sought Australia's protection between August 2012 and December 2013 and who have suffered the physical and mental anguish of mandatory detention, family separation, uncertainty about their legal status, and the constant risk of removal to Nauru or Manus Island. To quote the New South Wales Bar Association, this bill goes far beyond what is necessary to deal with the legacy caseload. It involves serious departures from Australia's international obligations to human rights and, more generally, to the extent that the bill does deal with the legacy caseload, it does so in a way which is procedurally unjust and unfair.

One of the thousands of submissions received by the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee has described the bill as 'punitive and nasty' and written so as to suggest that, 'asylum seekers are being punished for their temerity in seeking our compassion; for taking at face value our oft-proclaimed commitment to human rights and the rule of law.'

Along with other migration bills before the parliament, this bill constitutes the single biggest change to Australia's asylum seeker policy ever made. The bill's six schedules would fundamentally change the way protection claims are assessed. The bill changes the criteria by which a person is found to be owed protection and the nature of the protection provided by Australia to those in genuine need. It also changes the legal status of those seeking our protection and empowers a range of government agencies to restrict or remove their liberty. In each schedule, the bill removes the now rare existing features of the Migration Act which operate to protect the rights and interests of asylum seekers, in favour of a system that departs from international law and rule of law principles.

As the Greens spokesperson on legal affairs, I have to raise particular concerns about those features of the bill that remove procedural rights and review rights, long-standing protections against oppression in our Australian legal system. These features prescribe a legal framework for the determination of refugee and protection status that is contrary to international law and rule of law principles.

In a move of shameless legal manipulation, the government uses this bill to remove references to the refugee convention from the Migration Act and replaces them with the government's own interpretation of the convention. How can we possibly persuade other countries to fulfil their international obligations when our own actions show that we are prepared to manipulate and undermine an important international convention? Our hypocrisy will be seen for what it is.

This bill also removes fundamental procedural rights to safeguard the integrity of what can be a life-or-death decision about a person's need for protection. It does this by introducing a new fast-track procedure which will give asylum seekers one shot at setting out the evidence needed to substantiate their protection claim to an immigration official, but without providing them any access to independent advice or support. They will not be able to have the merits of the claim reviewed by the Refugee Review Tribunal.

There are so many other egregious betrayals of human rights and rule of law principles in this bill. Unfortunately I do not have the time to go into it. But there is a deep chasm between this proposed law and a principled, fair and dignified approach to providing protection to those in genuine need. The Australian Greens strenuously oppose the passage of this bill. This bill is indefensible and un-Australian.