James Paterson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Cyber Security) Share this | Hansard source

I am rising only briefly to make one point about this routine of business variation. That is about a bill that's missing from this list, that somehow didn't make its way onto the government's suggested agenda for the guillotine. It's surprising because it's a bill that the government has told us, time and time again, is urgent. In fact, it was so urgent that, when it was introduced in March, we were told that it must be passed in 36 hours and that we couldn't have a Senate inquiry to consider this bill because it was so urgent. The government eventually relented and allowed us to have a two-hour hearing but only on the expectation that the parliament would consider it within 72 hours.

So where are we? Several months on, the Migration Amendment (Removal and Other Measures) Bill 2024 has not made it onto the government's agenda for this week. They have not listed it on the program. Given the opportunity of a guillotine, to list bills that they consider to be urgent that must be passed before the parliament rises for the winter break, they haven't listed it. Why not? The Minister for Home Affairs, Clare O'Neil, in March, when the opposition teamed up with the entire Senate crossbench to refer this to an inquiry, said that we were delaying this, that it was going to do great harm to our national security and our community safety, that it was a disgrace, that we were standing in the way and playing politics and that this was so urgent that they couldn't possibly allow the community to have their say on this bill in the orthodox and standard way through a parliamentary inquiry. And yet the parliament has now sat in March, May, June and July and, before we are to rise for a long winter break, this urgent bill that must be passed hasn't even made it onto the agenda.

So that raises the question: was this bill ever really urgent in the first place? Was the real urgency of the government that they didn't want scrutiny of this bill, that they didn't want human rights groups, multicultural groups, legal experts and others to scrutinise this legislation, that they were worried about what would happen on their left flank if they tried to push through this bill, which may have even been introduced for political purposes, ahead of a High Court hearing that they couldn't be guaranteed would go their way and subsequently did and therefore the urgency has passed?

For the record, the coalition has offered to work with the government on this bill. We, with Senator Scarr and others, provided a dissenting report on the Senate inquiry that made constructive suggestions about how this bill could be improved and about how due process could be restored to the powers that it proposes to grant to the minister for immigration. We've had further meetings with government. We've had amendments drafted and we've put those to the government. What have we heard in response? Radio silence, crickets, nothing. In fact, the Minister for Home Affairs, when asked about this bill at a press conference the other day, said that it was up to the opposition to facilitate its passage. It's pretty hard to facilitate the passage of a bill that's not even listed on government's program. It is your bill. You need to introduce it. If you want it to be passed, put it on the Notice Paper. Maybe even take the opportunity of the guillotine that you're moving today to list this bill so the parliament can consider it.

We've said time and time again—and I'll repeat it today—that we think there's a genuine public policy problem here that needs to be solved. We do have people who refuse to cooperate with their own removal after being found by every court and every tribunal not to be owed protection. We believe that the measures in this bill can help address that problem, and that's why we've offered to work with government in a sensible bipartisan way to get it passed, with some amendments, to make sure some basic elements of due diligence and parliamentary scrutiny are introduced into that process. But the government hasn't brought it forward, and it's really up to them to explain what has happened to this urgent bill. Why has it disappeared? Why haven't you put it forward? Have the courage of your convictions. Either put forward the bill that you said was urgent for the parliament to consider or admit that you never had any serious intention of legislating this bill, that it was just a political smokescreen to protect yourself against a potentially adverse High Court ruling and that you are in fact walking away from and abandoning a bill that you told us we must ram through this place in 36 hours.