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

I rise today to speak to the bill, which amends the Australian law to allow babies who have been born to those seeking asylum, who have been born in Australian hospitals and who have been issued with Australian birth certificates to be able to stay in Australia and have claims for refugee protection to be assessed here. The reason we need this bill is that the current government is currently considering deporting 39 little babies back from Australia to Nauru to be banished from any opportunity to be awarded a safe and secure childhood and future here in Australia.

This bill would amend the Migration Act to make it very clear that babies born here in Australia—in Australian hospitals and issued with Australian birth certificates—are not to be classified as unauthorised maritime arrivals. The reason we need this is because the government last year, in the haste of a High Court proceeding, moved legislation in this place to classify any child born in these circumstances to be recognised and characterised in the Migration Act as an unauthorised maritime arrival. This is just absurd.

These children, safely born here in Australia, arrived just like every other Australian born baby. Currently in Australian law, they are now classified as unauthorised maritime arrivals. These babies arrived into the world safely here in Australia. They were born in the safety of Australian hospitals, with the care and support of Australian medical staff. The idea that they are characterised as arriving by sea is illogical and absurd. Just on those basic points, we need this legislation to amend this ridiculous situation that is currently on our statute books.

We know, of course, that the Australian public is very concerned right now for 39 babies—young children—who are in this situation, whose parents came to Australia by boat. They were transferred off to indefinite detention on Nauru. Because of a number of reasons, namely the lack of appropriate medical facilities and safe avenues for giving birth on Nauru, the mothers were transferred back to Australia and the babies were born here on Australian soil.

These children are now the subject of a huge political debate in this country. Malcolm Turnbull wants to send these children back to Nauru. The Australian people increasingly reject that proposition. Increasingly, people are arguing that surely an Australian baby, born here, should not just be given the opportunity to have a childhood free of the abuse of detention but also the opportunity—if they are indeed to be found in need of protection and they are refugees—to able to be assessed here efficiently and to be integrated safely in our communities. These children deserve the right to a childhood. I argue that there is no future for a child in detention on Nauru.

As I have said, there are 39 babies who are currently here in Australia. Thirty-seven of those were subject to the recent High Court legislation, and two are not. The fate of being deported back to Nauru faced them all. One of those little girls is Baby Asha, who we have learned a lot about in the last few weeks. She is a little girl who was born in Australia and sent back to Nauru. She has had to live the first six to eight months of her life in a tent in a detention camp on Nauru. Because of the unsafe environment and because the provisions provided to that family for their young daughter were nothing much more than a kettle inside a tent, that child has—as a result of an accident—had to be transferred back here to Australia for medical assistance.