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

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by Senator Brandis to my question on migration matters.

It is worth noting here that, for many years, immigration minister after immigration minister or their representatives in this place or Prime Minister after Prime Minister or their representatives in this place have lectured to the Australian people that in fact we have to be cruel to people seeking asylum in our country. We have to be cruel, we have to turn back the boats, we have to indefinitely detain our fellow human beings who are reaching out their hands for help from us, and we have to do all that in order to 'stop the boats'. Let's leave aside for a minute the fact that the boats have not actually stopped and that we are still turning boats back at an average of about one a month and have been since Operation Sovereign Borders started. Let's just leave that aside for a minute and go to the heart of the argument from the government and backed up by Labor that we have to be cruel to people so that they do not place their lives at risk by going to sea in unseaworthy vessels.

What we have from the government now is a complete backflip, an effective admission that this deterrence myth is in fact just that: a myth. What the government has done is to agree with the United States that the US will consider—and that is all they have agreed to do, by the way—taking some of those poor people who have been incarcerated for so long on Manus Island and in Nauru. After being told time and time again that we cannot give people seeking asylum a pathway to a better life, because it will just encourage them to place their lives at risk at sea, what are we doing? We are creating a pathway to a better life for people seeking asylum. That better life is in the United States of America.

I hope that the United States of America take a significant number of people from Manus Island and Nauru. Who could blame people on Manus Island and Nauru—who, let us not forget, were actually seeking asylum in our country, Australia—for taking the opportunity to go to a place like the United States, when the alternative is to rot away in indefinite detention on Manus Island and in Nauru? Of course a lot of people are going to take that option, if it ever becomes available to them. But that does not change the fact that we have a responsibility here in Australia. We deliberately harmed these people; we indefinitely detained these people. We have a moral obligation to every one of them, whether or not they were found to be genuine refugees, because we have harmed every one of them and placed every one of them in harm's way—every woman, child and man. Not only do we have a moral obligation to bring them to Australia but we also have a legal obligation under the international conventions and protocols that we are a signatory to.

The government has admitted that indefinitely warehousing our fellow human beings on Manus Island and in Nauru is unsustainable—and hallelujah for that. Finally, after torturing people for years in Australia's name, the government has admitted that it is not a goer. But, instead of doing the right thing, the simplest thing—bringing those people to Australia—we are still casting around for third countries to take these people. Why is that? Because this myth of deterrence was always about domestic politics; it was never about humanitarian outcomes. Humanitarian outcomes were the masquerade, the camouflage that successive governments have placed on their policy frameworks. The myth of deterrence was not about delivering humanitarian outcomes; it was about cheap domestic politics that began, in its latest iteration in this country, when John Howard refused to allow the MV Tampa to come into the country. It has gone on time after time since that day. But, finally, the government has confessed that it was all a myth. The deterrence myth was just that—a myth—and, in fact, they had no need at all for the cruelty of their policies. It was all about a domestic political imperative, not about delivering humanitarian outcomes, which was the camouflage that they placed over it. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.