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

I will explain why. Senator Brandis, in answering my question during question time yesterday, said the legislation had been tabled in the House that morning. It had not. It did not come into the house until 4 pm yesterday. We were given notice in this place that it had passed at 6 pm. We have less than 24 hours to deal with this piece of legislation, to consider (a) if it is needed and (b) what the consequences might be. I have had a look at this very short bill, and it gives unfettered power to the Abbott government to keep children in detention indefinitely in Nauru. That is what it does. It says that Australian taxpayers will be footing the bill. It also retrospectively amends the legislation to say that for the last three years the billions and billions of dollars that have been spent by Australian taxpayers on these illegal detention centres will now be accepted because the government has found out that all along this was the wrong thing to do—spending billions and billions of Australian dollars locking up children indefinitely. That is why the government is rushing this through—not because it is a good process, not because it is good legislation but because they were about to face the music in the High Court.

This hours motion and the rushing through of this legislation is an abuse of power and an abuse of the use of parliament. If this government were confident that they were acting lawfully they would not be rushing this legislation through the parliament. They would give the Senate time to consider it. Why is it not going to an inquiry like every other piece of legislation? I notice today that the citizenship bill, despite being debated for weeks, despite the fact that there are divisions in the government's own ranks about that bill, has been introduced into the House and has now gone off to a committee inquiry. Yet when it comes to the issue of refugee children, oh no, they could not possibly inquire into the legislation; they could not possibly look at what the consequences will be.

The fact is that this government has been running the Nauru and Manus Island detention centres appallingly, illegally. They are rife with abuse. It is a waste of taxpayers money. Children are suffering. Rather than dealing with the consequences, rather than working out how to fix the problem, they want to confirm the situation, cover it up, rush legislation in and ram it through the Senate and no-one will be any the wiser. No, the Senate should not be allowing this to happen. The government does not have a mandate to abuse the Senate processes. They do not have a mandate to rush through pieces of legislation at their whim designed just to spend taxpayer money locking up kids. The parliament has a responsibility to ensure that the government is held to account. The government does not have a mandate for this and the Senate should stand up to this abuse. The Senate should stand up and say, 'Give us the reasons. Why is this urgent?'—there are not any reasons. 'Give us the reasons these changes are needed'—because, possibly, what you have been doing for the last three years has been illegal.

This is an opportunity to fix the horrors of what is going on on Manus Island and Nauru. I do not agree with offshore processing; that is no secret. The Greens do not believe that we should be locking refugees up in these hell-holes, punishing them simply because they have had to flee war and persecution. We will never agree to that. But we accept that they exist. And what we are always about is trying to improve the lives of people. Here is an opportunity: if you want to get good outcomes—and this is straight to the Labor Party—if you want to try and improve the conditions in these places, this is the place to do it. This is the opportunity.

Do not give unfettered power to Tony Abbott to keep children locked up indefinitely. Tony Abbott has no care. He has been proven to have absolute disregard for the lives of those kids. Do not let him get away with it. Put some restrictions on how that power of detention can be used. Do not keep kids locked up forever. Put some time limits in. Let the Human Rights Commission visit and inspect the conditions.

Have some oversight. Make it mandatory that staff who see children being abused have to report it. Do this, because we know what has happened for the last two years under this government; it has been covered up, and children who have been abused in the Nauru detention centre have had to stay there, unable to escape the hands of their abusers. And here we have the Senate rushing through legislation to make sure those children stay there forever. It is appalling. It is absolutely sickening. And we want to change the hours in this place, throw out Senate procedure, so those kids have to stay put at the hands of their abusers? It is disgusting.

The Greens will not be supporting this change of sitting hours motion. This is an abuse of Senate procedure. The government thinks they have a mandate to do whatever they want; they do not. It may be the Prime Minister's attitude that he 'will do whatever it takes', but it has to be within the law. It has to be within the processes. It has to be under the checks and balances of this place. If the Senate allows them to ram through a bill in 24 hours, that is the Senate not doing its job. That is not what we are elected to do. We are elected to keep a check on the executive. Stand up and make a difference.