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

I rise to speak on the report of the Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee on its inquiry into serious allegations of abuse, self-harm and neglect of asylum seekers in relation to the Nauru Regional Processing Centre and any like allegations in relation to the Manus Regional Processing Centre.

Last week I was in Papua New Guinea on Manus Island, where Australia has been detaining innocent people in the Manus Island detention centre, in many cases for nearly four years. Those people who are detained there, along with the people Australia is detaining on Nauru, are Australia's political prisoners. They are being deliberately harmed by the Australian government in order to coerce other people. That is why what is happening on Manus Island as well as what is happening on Nauru can accurately be described, and has been described by Amnesty International, as torture.

When I was on Manus Island I learnt a number of things—and I will speak about some of those matters at another time. What I did learn was exactly what happened in the lead-up to the Good Friday shootings at the Manus Island detention camp. I learnt about those events through lengthy conversations with eyewitness detainees and with Inspector David Yapu, who is the senior Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary officer on Manus Island.

What happened on Good Friday on Manus Island was that Papua New Guinea naval personnel attacked Australia's detention camp. They fired over a hundred shots into and over the camp, and they tried to ram through the gates of the camp with a naval vehicle. During this attack, detainees huddled for their lives—on the floor, under their beds, wherever they could find—to get out of the way of the bullets. Right beside them, huddling for their very lives, were the staff at the centre, who were quite understandably terrified—along with the detainees—about what was going on.

I want to talk specifically about the comments made on the public record by the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, Mr Dutton, about what led up to these shootings. Mr Dutton was asked on Sky News on 19 April by David Speers what he knew about an incident where, as Mr Speers put it:

… the PNG Defence Force allegedly fired shots at the detention centre after a fight with asylum seekers.

Mr Dutton, after briefly mentioning that there was an investigation underway by the PNG police, said:

There was difficulty, as I understand it, in the community. There was an alleged incident where three asylum seekers were alleged to be leading a local five year old boy back toward the facility and there was a lot of angst around that, if you like, within the local PNG community.

David Speers then asked:

Why was there angst about that?

Mr Dutton said:

Well because I think there was concern about why the boy was being led or for what purpose he was being led away back into the regional processing centre. So I think it's fair to say that the mood had elevated quite quickly. I think some of the local residents were quite angry about this particular incident and another alleged sexual assault.

So there you have it: the immigration minister, Peter Dutton, directly linking an event that involved a young, local boy with the shootings.

'What is wrong with that?' you might ask. I will tell you what is wrong with that. It is complete and utter rubbish. It is a deliberate fabrication from the minister—a falsehood designed to demonise asylum seekers in the minds of the Australian people. I know that, because I have spoken to many people who were there, and I have also had a lengthy briefing from the Papua New Guinea police about this matter.

I want to inform the Senate what Inspector David Yapu of the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary told me. I am reading directly from my contemporaneous notes of the conversation that I had with Inspector Yapu. The first point he made was that the event around a boy was 'a completely unrelated matter.' He said that that event happened on the ninth and, as he pointed out to me, Good Friday was much later. Inspector Yapu also said that there has been no complaint laid to the PNG police over the event with a young boy. The direct quote from Inspector Yapu was: 'The boy's parents have not come to the police. It is a dead issue, as far as we are concerned. It is a dead issue.' That is what he said to me.

Why is Peter Dutton, the minister for immigration, trying to link an event involving a young boy with the terrible shootings on Good Friday when, in fact, the PNG police—both in that conversation and that briefing they provided to me, but also in other public comments—have made it very clear that there is no connection between the two events?

Well, of course, Peter Dutton is doing this because it worked for the Liberals last time, when they lied about children being thrown overboard. The Liberals have got plenty of exposed form on lying about people seeking asylum and refugees and doing so because they think it is to their political benefit.

I have spoken to detainees who were there when the young boy came up to the centre—he was not led up there, by the way; Mr Dutton is wrong about that, too. When he came up, the detainees gave the boy some fruit. He had said he was hungry. The detainees gave some of their precious fruit—and it is precious, in that place—to the boy, in an act of kindness and of good heart. And the boy left, completely unharmed.

But that is not Mr Dutton's version of events. His version of events is completely different. In fact, his version of events bears very little or no relationship to reality and to what actually happened, both on 9 April—when that boy came up and was given fruit and left completely unharmed—and on Good Friday.

I am going to tell you what actually led to the Good Friday shootings on Manus Island. There is a football field on the naval base within which the Manus Island detention centre is located, and there is an informal arrangement that the detainees can use that football field up to a particular time and that after that it reverts back to use by the navy personnel. There was a dispute around whether the detainees should leave the field, and that dispute escalated in such a way that shots ultimately ended up being fired. But what happened is that PNG naval personnel, holding alcoholic drinks, started by throwing rocks and actually successfully hitting some of the detainees. I have seen the scar on one detainee's head; the scab is still there; it is the size of a 50c piece. He was rescued by other detainees who were in fear of their lives from these drunken Papua New Guinea naval personnel, and he was conveyed back up to the camp. And shortly after that the shooting started. That is what caused the shooting. It was nothing to do with Mr Dutton's version of events.

But Mr Dutton has made it worse for himself because, when he was cross-examined by Barrie Cassidy on 23 April on the ABC's Insiders program and Barrie Cassidy said, 'Why didn't you let the investigation happen before you pre-empted it?' Mr Dutton said, 'I was asked why the mood had elevated on the ground on Manus Island.' Well, no, he was not! No, he was not asked that at all. That was another lie. He was asked about the shooting. He was not asked why there was an elevation in the mood on the ground. So he has doubled down here, lie on lie. And the Australian people deserve an answer from Mr Dutton as to why he is demonising asylum seekers—