Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

It is good to have the debate brought back to some basic facts and reality about what is happening on Manus Island and Nauru, and that the reality of people who are fleeing persecution, including in our region, is being put on the record. Somehow or other we are continuing to get this fiction that these people are just trying to rort some non-existent system. A textbook case of genocide is happening right now in our region, and people are fleeing that. Are they are supposed to just stay there and die? That is this government's idea of what they consider 'humane'.

Let's revisit the actual text of what we are discussing here today, a matter that is, very much, of public importance: the inhumanity and cruelty of Australia's offshore detention system.

Not a single word from the coalition speakers today in any way sought to suggest that it is anything other than inhumane and cruel on Manus Island or Nauru, except for the extraordinary statement from Senator Macdonald that these people are 'well treated'. Eight of them have died! Whatever you say about the regime under John Howard, Philip Ruddock and their successors, at least they managed to run an offshore detention regime that didn't involve people dying, people being murdered, people dying by blatant bureaucratic neglect. This minister in this country has to take ultimate responsibility for those things.

As people know, I've only recently come back into this chamber, but it was a terrible feeling of deja vu listening to some of the nonsense, from Senator Macdonald in particular. Literally 20 years ago when I first came here, the same lies were being said, and probably by the same speaker. And it's because those lies have been able to be repeated and take hold that these sorts of outrageous human rights abuses have continued to occur. This litany of lies still gets repeated today. It is not illegal to seek asylum; that is a simple fact, and to continue to assert otherwise is false. It is false to suggest anything other than: the vast majority of people are clearly refugees. That has been determined by our own grotesquely inadequate system of assessment on Manus Island and Nauru. It is totally false to say that Australia is the most generous country in the world when it comes to accepting refugees per capita. It is the same falsehood was said 20 years ago, and yet we had the grand, crowning lie today that somehow these people on Manus Island are 'well treated'. Unbelievable!

And there is the nonsense that somehow people have stopped drowning. What do you think happened to all of those Rohingya people, even before the genocide got put on to massive turbocharging by the Myanmar military? What do you think happened to them on those boats? Remember—those other countries in our region who followed Tony Abbott's lead and pushed them back out to sea. What do you think happened to them? Did they all, sort of, go back home and sit in their lounge rooms and say, 'Oh, well, we had a go and we missed out'. There is clear evidence. I know they're not interested in anything other than the fairytales that they continue to try and perpetrate for political advantage on the Australian people. There is clear evidence of thousands of people drowning in our region. But somehow or other that is not a matter of concern.

The simple fact is: of course we can't assist every person who is fleeing extreme danger, but there are some people that we can help now, and we certainly should not be inflicting extra harm, extra suffering, extra cruelty on those people. It does have to be said that those camps on Manus Island were reopened under the Labor government, and it was not—as claimed in another falsehood from Senator Macdonald—'with the support of the Greens'. It was clearly opposed by the Greens at the time, categorically and repeatedly.

Senator Ian Macdonald interjecting—

Senator Macdonald perhaps hasn't been listening all that time, but I see he's back in the chamber and responding, so presumably he's heard me just this one time. So I can tell you: it was not true; you are wrong. Now you cannot not repeat at least one falsehood again.

The simple fact is there is an opportunity right now, as was stated by another speaker. Hundreds of those people could be and should be in New Zealand right now. Let's also not forget, in amongst all that history over the last 20 years, that there was a significant shift due to public pressure—community pressure, groups like Rural Australians for Refugees, and so many other people in the community, and some people back then in the Liberal Party who pressured the Howard government to change its policy—to bring those refugees here from Nauru, some of whom are now citizens, as others have said in this debate and have built strong lives in this country and are contributing effectively to this country. That position can be changed again, and I know community sentiment is shifting to stop this cruelty now.