Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Dutton has got a taste of what fear, misinformation and hatred can deliver him, and he wants more of it. He's hungry for it.

This is the Dutton tail wagging the Labor dog. Make no mistake about it. I've been in this place for nearly 16 years, and this issue continues to be one of nasty politics, using the lives of refugees to score political points and win political ground, and it's disgusting. It's absolutely disgusting, and we're seeing it all over again. I can't count how many times this chamber has had to sit late into the evening because both the Labor Party and the Liberal Party decide that it's time to ram through some draconian law that limits the freedoms, rights and human rights protections of refugees in this country. It's happened so many times, and finally the High Court, a fortnight ago, said the worst of all of those, the indefinite detention of a person without the ruling of a court, without hearing or a trial, at the whim of a minister or his public servant delegate, is illegal. We've known it's wrong, but now we know for sure that it's illegal. But, in the haste to respond to this because the Dutton opposition wants to gain ground by whipping up fear and racism in this country, the Labor Party have gone weak at the knees.

Where is the guts? Where is the political spine to stand up for the basic principles you believe in? Not only are we seeing this legislation being rammed through in a knee-jerk reaction before you've even seen the High Court's deliberations and reasons, we're seeing the Labor Party agree to amend their own rushed piece of legislation to make it even worse because Peter Dutton demanded it—