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

How curious that not one Labor senator who's spoken to this matter of public importance has acknowledged the elephant in the room that was revealed by Senator Scarr in his contribution moments ago—that the terms of this MPI put forward by One Nation are lifted directly from the Australian Labor Party's new migration policy, revealed by Senator Keneally in a recent op-ed. Well, to Senator Keneally and to the Australian Labor Party: how proud you must be of your new migration policy, which now has the backing of One Nation. Labor got the front-page treatment with Senator Keneally's op-ed in The Sydney Morning Herald, and that op-ed told migrant workers exactly what you think of them. Now, bang—in comes One Nation to support you. Well, Labor blew the whistle and now the dogs are barking, and no-one should be surprised at that. This is exactly what the Labor Party wanted. It wanted a unity ticket with One Nation to demonise migrant workers, and that is exactly what the Labor Party has got.

The Labor Party's stance since the election has been nothing short of shameful. But we shouldn't be surprised, because back in 2013 it was the Australian Labor Party in government that restarted offshore detention, which resulted in thousands of innocent human beings—men, women and children—being indefinitely detained on Manus Island and Nauru. We all know the death, the human suffering, the torture and the human misery that are still going on today because of that shameful decision made by the Australian Labor Party.

If that's not bad enough, Labor has more recently been attacking people seeking asylum in this country by describing them as airplane people. I've got a lesson for the Australian Labor Party based on human history: it's very dangerous to try and outflank fascists and human rights abusers from the Right. But that is exactly what the Australian Labor Party is doing. It's decided to focus on demonising migrants instead of focusing on the real issues in this country, which are to improve workers' rights and to curb the power of unscrupulous employers. Those are the issues that the Labor Party should be focusing on. You can't hope to improve the lot of workers in Australia by kicking down on temporary visa holders. You cannot hope to protect migrant workers by deporting them or seeking to prevent others from arriving in this country.

Labor is strengthening the cause of Minister Dutton and One Nation and making life more difficult for migrants and temporary visa holders. The Labor Party needs to get with the program and start pushing to help all workers, no matter where they come from. They could start by committing to strengthen the Fair Work Act so that workers have more bargaining power. Maybe, for once in Labor's recent history, it could actually start opposing what the government is trying to do, rather than dog whistling and seeking to lie down with One Nation on the issue of migration policy in this country. I hope the Labor Party is ashamed of itself today.