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

The Migration Amendment (Bridging Visa Conditions) Bill 2023 is legislation that, according to the Minister for Home Affairs, in the House of Representatives just this morning, gives the government 'powers that no government has ever had before' in Australia. That is a direct quote from the Minister for Home Affairs in the other place this morning. This bill is so critical that it gives the government powers that it has never before had—powers that can be imposed on people who are innocent people, not because they've been convicted of a crime. These people are going to be, by definition, noncitizens. They are going to be migrants. They are going to be refugees. These are people who have already been detained, in some cases for many years, in a manner that the High Court has just found to have been unlawful. Yet here we find ourselves.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has confected an emergency, just as former prime minister John Howard did when the Tampa hove over the horizon more than two decades ago, cheerled by the Murdoch media, just as they did when the MVTampa hove over the horizon more than 20 years ago. The Labor Party has capitulated in the most abject and craven fashion, just as they did when the MV Tampa hove over the horizon 20 years ago. If there's one thing that the major parties in this place can agree on, it's that, when you need to demonise someone in this country, demonise refugees! There is a bipartisan lock step of cruelty to refugees that has run through this country for too long, and it needs to end. We have seen refugees on the MV Tampa persecuted, politicised and demonised. We've seen them persecuted on Manus Island. We've seen them persecuted, dehumanised and demonised on Nauru. And we're seeing it again today. Make no mistake: this is Prime Minister Albanese's Tampa moment, and history will condemn him for this, just as it condemned Mr Howard and Mr Beazley over 20 years ago.

These are draconian laws that will provide the minister, according to the Minister for Home Affairs, with powers never before seen in Australia. These laws allow for visa conditions to be opposed, which is detention by another name: curfews—effectively house arrest—and electronic surveillance or, as it's more commonly known, electronic detention. In order to try to get around the High Court, to try to subvert the highest court in this country, the Labour Party is bringing in legislation—which I have no doubt at all will be supported by the Liberals—that will provide for detention by another name and will also, for the first time, criminalise any breach of bail conditions, and that offence will be punishable by a jail term of up to five years.

So, mark my words, they are going to set people up to fail by putting in place punitive conditions that are almost impossible to comply with. And when they've set them up to fail and people inevitably fail—through carelessness or through not paying due attention to where they find themselves or to the fine print of reporting conditions or any other conditions—they will be charged, and then they will potentially be imprisoned by the courts. And the government is doing all this in less than a day. Here we are, debating under a gag motion agreed to by the Coles and Woolworths of Australian politics—the political duopoly, operating in zombie lock step—to once again punish vulnerable refugees, because it's in their political interests to do so.

This legislation creates a two-tiered justice system in this country where some migrants and refugees will be subject to measures that Australian citizens will not and cannot be subject to. This will divide our country and set one group of people inside Australia against another.

Labor is a party that once prided itself on championing human rights and justice, and it's now marching to the tune of opposition leader Peter Dutton, a man who has built a political career on trampling human rights and demonising refugees. It is an utter disgrace—an abject, craven capitulation by a party that has forgotten where it comes from and forgotten what it used to stand for. Labor's decision to fast-track this legislation has been made for one reason and one reason only. It is because they have cravenly collapsed under the political pressure applied by Mr Peter Dutton, the Leader of the Opposition, amplified and magnified by his friends and cheerleaders in the Murdoch media.

We've heard a lot about community safety during this debate, but let's be really clear about the big threat to community safety: allowing politicians to arbitrarily impose punishment on people. That is the big threat to community safety, because that takes us a number of steps down the pathway towards tyranny. Historically, countries that are now considered to be Western democracies have come from tyrannical regimes. The monarchy in England was a tyrannical regime, and a revolution was fought to establish parliaments. Yet here we are in a parliament, taking steps back down the road to tyranny.

This is a disgraceful display of political opportunism by Mr Dutton and a craven capitulation by the Australian Labor Party. To make it worse, Labor's leader in the House, Mr Burke, this morning confirmed that there is 'absolutely a possibility of further legislation after the High Court delivers its reasons'. This brings me to the next obvious point. We are ramming this through, and it will pass today. I predict only the Greens will oppose it. It will pass today. It is a response to a High Court decision that we have not yet seen the reasons for. This parliament is shadow-boxing with the High Court. We don't even know what the actual scope of the High Court decision is. We don't know what its reasons are. We don't know who's going to be caught by that decision. But let's blindly stagger on, eh? Government and opposition, let's blindly stagger on because, when we don't know what to do, we're just going to collude to demonise refugees. It is a pattern we have seen repeated time after time after time in this place.

I want to speak a little bit to the detail of this legislation. We, the Greens, have concerns about issues such as necessity, proportionality and the limited judicial appeal rights that are granted to people under this legislation. Curfews have traditionally only been used for serious criminal offenders or where there is a flight risk. But I want people to understand—because you wouldn't know this from the serial mistruths that have been propagated in this debate by the Leader of the Opposition and his cohort in this chamber—that not all of the people caught by the High Court decision have been convicted of a crime. There are a significant number who have not, yet this legislation provides for the minister to arbitrarily impose visa conditions, including curfew and electronic detention, on people who have never been convicted of a crime. Yet all we're getting is cheerleading from everyone else in this place except for the Greens. I note the only people to oppose this legislation in the lower house were the Australian Greens. Mr Wilkie supported it. A number of the MPs known as the teals supported this legislation—a disgraceful capitulation by those folks as well as by the Labor Party. This legislation creates a class of people who are judged not by their actions but by their visa status.

The debate around this matter has exposed the extent to which the media ecosystem in this parliament and this country is utterly broken. The media, with a small number of honourable exceptions, have swallowed Mr Dutton's framing hook, line and sinker on this. That includes a number of journalists in outlets that should know better. I expect that rubbish from the Murdoch media, but I don't expect it from organisations who should know better. But that's what we've been served up in this debate. The overwhelming majority of the media in this building and in this country need to take a good, long look at themselves in the mirror over the way they have reported this issue.

I also want to make the point that, if a noncitizen wants to contend that they have a reasonable excuse for a breach of a visa condition, the burden of evidentiary proof will be on them. They have to prove that they had a reasonable excuse for a breach. That is contrary to natural justice and the norms around where the burden of proof is generally allocated in Australian law.

Let me remind the Senate that those who will be caught by this legislation who had in the past committed crimes—and that is by no means all of the people that will be caught—have already served their time. This is double punishment. This is double jeopardy and double punishment. What I say in terms of the legality of this legislation is: stand by for another return to the High Court. I've got no doubt the Labor government has got advice from the Solicitor-General that this is all fine and it's all in accordance with the Constitution, but that's what they said last time, and they got turfed out by the High Court just last week. There will be a High Court challenge to these powers when the appropriate case arises; mark my words.