Alex Gallacher (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I acknowledge the passion and fire that's in the debate currently before the chamber. A number of positions have been purported to be that of the Labor Party. I think it's really instructive to note general business notice of motion No. 552, moved by Senator Carr and carried by 31 to 28 votes in this chamber today. That clearly and succinctly sets out the position of the Australian Labor Party. It reads:

That the Senate—

(a) acknowledges the failure of the Abbott-Turnbull Government to manage offshore processing arrangements and secure other third country resettlement arrangements for eligible refugees;

(b) notes the United States of America refugee resettlement agreement will resettle up to 1 250 eligible refugees from Manus Island and Nauru but that some eligible refugees will miss out on the opportunity to resettle in America;

(c) acknowledges former Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced an agreement with Prime Minister John Key on 9 February 2013 at the annual Australia-New Zealand Leaders' meeting that:

  (i) New Zealand would resettle 150 refugees annually from Australia, including refugees from Manus Island and Nauru, and

  (ii) the first refugees would be resettled in 2014;

(d) notes that, if former Prime Minister Tony Abbott had not withdrawn from the agreement, as many as 600 refugees would have been resettled in New Zealand by now;

(e) acknowledges the inquiry and report of the Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee, 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, and in particular, recommendation 7: "The committee recommends that the Australian Government give serious consideration to all resettlement offers it receives, including the Government of New Zealand's offer to resettle refugees from Papua New Guinea and the Republic of Nauru. Further, if particular resettlement offers are considered unsuitable, the Government should clearly outline the reasons";

(f) notes New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has renewed the offer to Australia to resettle 150 refugees from Manus Island and Nauru;

(g) notes Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has failed to explain why he will not accept New Zealand's offer to resettle eligible refugees from Manus and Nauru; and—

finally in this motion, the very good work of Senator Carr and others—

(h) calls on the Turnbull Government to immediately accept New Zealand's offer to resettle refugees from Manus Island and Nauru and begin negotiating appropriate conditions, similar to the United States refugee resettlement agreement, to ensure people smugglers do not exploit vulnerable people.

This has been an issue ever since I came into this place on, I think, 1 July 2011. I can remember Senator Cash being extremely vocal on this issue. It occurred to me at that time. Right at that point I thought: 'This is Australia. Why are we fighting over this issue? Our reputation as a taker of humanitarian refugees is without question.' Without question, we have taken more humanitarian refugees per capita than almost any other nation in the world. We've done it well, we've done it successfully and I think we did it in a bipartisan way. But the tragedy of this situation now is that we can't find our way through what looks like a pretty awful situation.

I don't like to turn on the TV and see people in distress anywhere, and we certainly don't like to see people who ostensibly are under the support, care and protection of the Australian government without electricity, water, medical facilities and the like. But I'm not sure that the political parties in this place at the moment—and I exempt the Labor Party from this, but I include the Greens party and the coalition—are really working in any way collegiately and cooperatively to a proper resolution.

It appears as if our Prime Minister has unerringly bad judgement and, whenever there is a chance to make a decision, he will unfailingly make the wrong decision. There is evidence of that right throughout his prime ministership. If ever there was a case for a Prime Minister to grab an issue by the whatever you'd like to refer to and show some genuine leadership, this is it. There have been a succession of ministers in this space. I do not talk at first hand, but I've heard in our caucus previous ministers in this space who have been distressed. The immigration portfolio has been a life-changing experience. It has really changed the way they've thought about and looked at the whole of our activity in this space. So it is not an easy portfolio and we had many problems, but what has happened has become immensely political now.

I get, like every senator in this place, the genuine concern. Australian constituents are making appointments, coming into my office and asking me to support positions which are contrary to my party policy and probably contrary to the fairly pragmatic position that I hold, but I understand the passion which they feel. They want these people to be in a better space, and it's a genuinely widely felt and deeply felt issue right throughout the Australian community. If ever there was one issue which we should be working together on, this is the type of issue where we should have no difference. Labor, Liberal, Green, Australian Conservatives—no-one should be allowed to get away with playing tawdry political games in this space.

Australia has an enviable reputation as a haven for people in humanitarian refugee intakes. I went to the town of Mount Gambier a couple of years ago, just after I became a senator. We had taken Karen refugees from the Burmese border. We had taken a chance, so to speak. We relocated them into regional South Australia, and in a very short space of time their children had taken over the schools. They were excellent in every area. The parents had got into viticulture and were all excelling at contributing to the economy. At their Australian citizenship ceremony, they sang the anthem in English, and all of them were working. We do this very well.

There is this really hard economic line about people who are refugees. Let's face it: we know that the stats say that quite a large proportion of these people on Manus Island are refugees. If we're not going to let them in here, we should be resettling them somewhere else. We shouldn't be simply saying, 'The door's closed here; you can rot in New Guinea,' because I don't think I would like to live in New Guinea. I don't think I would like the opportunity to participate in the New Guinea economy, and I qualify all this by saying I have never been in New Guinea, but, from what I have seen of some of the problems that any country that's developing has, it's not a place where I would like to go and resettle. So you can understand that these people are not actually inspired to settle in New Guinea.

But I really do think that we ought to do this debate a bit of justice and rise above the petty pointscoring and politics. I respect Senator Rhiannon's contribution, but I don't really think that roughing people up at a fundraiser or becoming strident in your verbal and physical actions is going to bring a result that helps people. I think the division that has been shown in this last hour is the problem. Harder heads need to get together, sit down and work out a compromise solution which sees these people move to New Zealand or move to the United States or move to any other resettlement option.

I don't disagree in some respects that the Hon. Peter Dutton would be the hardest of people in this space. Given that it's an extremely hard task, he has not shown any compassion, any mercy or anything other than, 'My way or the highway,' and, 'I am right on this.' Anyway, what it really looks like, and what I really have some discomfort with, is that he seems to think it's good politics. Well, if it is good politics and it gets him some votes, it's a disgraceful way to get votes by treading on people's humanity, by not affording them the generosity that was afforded to me, my family, Senator Dastyari's family and many hundreds of thousands, in fact millions, of Australians who came to this country, made a good life and were welcomed. If you want to play politics, this is the wrong issue.