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

I think everyone listening to this debate needs to be clear about what's going on here. This is yet another step down a dark and dangerous path that this country has been on for far too long. This motion before us today is not about keeping Australia safe. It's actually about base electoral politics. The motion before us today is about building a foundation for yet another LNP fear campaign based on demonising refugees—demonising people who seek asylum in this country—and based on attacking the very foundations of migration and multiculturalism that have served this country so well for so long and have helped to make this country into the vibrant place that it is today.

Make no mistake: the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Dutton, is a political vampire who feeds off the suffering of desperate and vulnerable people. His A game, his B game and his C game are all about fabricating and exploiting fear in our communities, and then turning around and laying all the blame for the fear that he has fabricated and sown on migrants and people who are not white in our country. This motion today is a dog whistle, a racist dog whistle, from a party that has brought us hysteria on the so-called African gangs. Recall Operation Fortitude. Recall the police-state policies and surveillance-state policies brought in under the previous government that erode fundamental human rights, and the rule of law and the very separation of powers that underpin Australia's democratic framework. Make no mistake: under Mr Dutton, we are going to see an election campaign that is based on fear and exploitation and is deliberately designed to weaponise the fear that he will sow, and weaponise it against migrant communities, refugees, people seeking asylum and the very fabric of multiculturalism in this society.

Well, the Australian Greens are going to stand up against it. We are going to stand up for refugees, for people seeking asylum, for multiculturalism and for migrants, because the Labor Party can't be trusted to do it because it is engaged in a race to the bottom on these issues with the LNP and Mr Dutton.