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

I rise to take note of the response by Senator Cash to the question I asked her in question time this afternoon. I asked Minister Cash about the situation, which is still ongoing, where a number of refugees and people seeking asylum who have been imprisoned in a hotel in Kangaroo Point are being forcibly moved to immigration detention by the Department of Home Affairs. This terrible circumstance highlights a number of issues.

Firstly, it's how this government continues to find new ways to extend the utter despair of people who have now spent nearly seven years in detention—most of it exiled on either Manus Island or Nauru, where some still remain; others are currently in Australia. It's not only extending their despair, it's extending the terrible harm that it has caused them and which has already been perpetrated on them for far too long. This is seven years of death, seven years of misery and seven years of arbitrary detention—seven years of arbitrary indefinite detention. It's seven years of deliberate harm being caused to innocent people. Ultimately, this is seven years of torture, and it is not acceptable for a liberal democracy like Australia to torture innocent people. And it ought not be acceptable for this chamber and this parliament to continue to support that torture.

The people in Kangaroo Point are people who've been evacuated to Australia because of urgent medical need. They were evacuated under the medevac legislation. I spoke personally to one of the people the department was trying to move last night, and he was told directly that he's being moved because he spoke out against his mistreatment. That's why they chose him. Yet Minister Cash rose in question time today and denied that obvious truth.

Let's be clear about this: the government has picked out people who've spoken out about their mistreatment and who've hung banners from their hotel, and it is forcing them, against their will, into immigration detention centres. This is being done to silence their dissent and to prevent them from speaking out about the terrible injustices that our country has perpetrated on them. If you had any doubt whether these people were political prisoners or not, that doubt should now be removed, because they are 100 per cent certainly political prisoners.

This is the stuff of a totalitarian government, not how a government should behave in a so-called liberal democracy. Instead of locking them up, why not finally end their nearly seven years of torment and let them rebuild their lives in the Australian community as we committed to do when we signed the protocol to the refugee convention? If the government is not prepared to do that, why not finally accept the kind and generous offer from the New Zealand government to resettle these people over time so they can rebuild their lives in New Zealand? How much more do these innocent people need to suffer? How many more years are going to be stolen from them? How many more families are going to be torn apart? How many more children are going to be harmed? How many more lives are going to be broken by this policy? When will it finally be long enough to satisfy the Liberal, National and Labor parties in this place?

I want to thank the brave people who protested against these moves in Brisbane last night and again today. They've shown far greater leadership, far greater compassion and far greater humanity than the members of the Liberal, National and Labor parties in this place.

Question agreed to.