Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to talk about the Migration and Maritime Powers Legislation Amendment (Resolving the Asylum Legacy Caseload) Bill 2014. I do so with a heavy heart on the last night of parliament for 2014. I am looking forward to getting home to my home state of Tasmania and spending time with my children and the rest of my family and enjoying the good life that so many Australians enjoy, spending time with our loved ones over Christmas. I will certainly be reminding myself of what a lucky country we live in. I think that sometimes we forget that it is not like that in the rest of the world, unless you have been overseas and experienced life in other places or have met people who have fled these other places. For example, I grew up socialising through our church group with Vietnamese refugees during the mid-1970s. They were a common part of my Sundays—we called them 'spring roll Sundays'. Our families would get together and we would spend time with them. I think now about the sort of society that my children are going to live in and the message that is coming from this government about other human beings. We need to get this right back to the building blocks and wash away all the spin, all the nonsense and all the messaging around this debate. Essentially, we are dealing with human beings.