Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Within 12 hours of the shocking footage being aired on FourCorners in relation to what is going on at Don Dale, the Prime Minister quite rightly stepped up, did his duty and announced that the government would be moving to a royal commission. Yet during the election campaign we saw the release of thousands of allegations of abuse, just from Nauru alone, in the Nauru files, and what did we get from Labor and Liberal? Nothing; nothing substantive at all. This is a continuation of the veil of secrecy that has been dropped over Australia's immigration detention network by the government, supported in the main by the Labor Party. It is time that we shone the disinfectant of sunlight on what is going on and the terrible abuses that we know are occurring and which the Senate has already heard are occurring through previous Senate inquiries. Finally, Senator McGrath, they are not illegals. It is not illegal to seek asylum.