David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

They literally have been read by Mr Dutton. They have been written by Mr Dutton. He wrote the amendments to add that little spice of cruelty to Labor's already offensive bill. This is an obscene act against people who've just got a little sliver of liberty. But it is an even more obscene political surrender by Labor to the coalition. The coalition must be wondering why they bother having a two-party system in this place. Why don't you just join together? Why don't you become the one big cruelty party and have a big cruelty party every time you come here to work out which particular group in society you can be cruellest to together? This week it just happens to be refugees. They're the part of society, the least powerful, that you've come together to be as cruel as you possibly can be towards because you think it will play well with the Murdoch media—because you think it will play well with a bunch of right-wing shock jocks. Why not just become a single 'party of cruelty' and be done with the pretence? Because that's what it is—and to watch you do this!

And where has the Attorney-General been in all of this? I am sure that there are people of good conscience in Labor who are revolted by what is happening, notionally in their name. I feel certain that the Attorney-General would be deeply offended by what this bill does and deeply offended by the dozen amendments that do things like put in mandatory sentencing, because it goes against his nature. But it's one thing to privately take offence to it. What would show courage would be to come out and say it.

We just saw 56 members of the UK Labour Party speak out against their leader when he was supporting a cruel position on Palestine, and they took a hit for it. A number of them knew that that meant they had to surrender their frontbench positions. They took the hit because, for them, it was a step too far. It was a step too far against their principles and their views of the cruel nature of Labour's policy in that regard in the UK.

How can it be that not one single member of the Labor Party here is willing to do the same on this offensive bill but will literally take the politics of Tampa and the cruelty and the ugliness that that led our country into for two decades, stick in the microwave and reheat it for 2023? How could nobody in the federal Labor Party say no to that and publicly take a stand? Where's Minister Giles on this? I feel pretty sure that this offends a bunch of his principles of decency. But it's no good to be privately offended and then publicly back in this cruel system. That doesn't help a single refugee. That just further drives our politics down Peter Dutton's path.