Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That these bills be now read a second time.

I seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speech read as follows—

These two Private Senators’ Bills are part of a series of Migration Act Amendment Bills which I will seek to table in the course of this parliamentary year.

These two Bills seek to reverse one of the more unjust legislative initiatives of the current Coalition government. It is particularly appropriate at a time when the government is once again seeking to further injustice and prevent proper accountability in the Migration Act through the Migration Amendment (Designated Unauthorised Arrivals) Bill 2006, which in effect seeks to excise the whole of Australia from asylum seekers who arrive by boat and place them outside the reach of Australian law and public scrutiny.

The purpose of these Bills is to turn back the provisions introduced by the Migration Amendment (Excision from Migration Zone) Act 2001 which removed Australian territory from the migration zone and effectively was a mechanism to give the government and the Department of Immigration absolute power without any opportunity for oversight by an independent body.

The Migration Amendment (Excision from Migration Zone)(Consequential Provisions) Act 2001 also effectively created categories of second class and third class visas and created yet another class of refugees with reduced rights.

Both pieces of legislation were rammed through with Government and Labor support in 2001 in a package of 7 Migration bills. Neither the Senate nor the public had adequate opportunity to examine their implications and the potential consequence for asylum seekers seeking protection from persecution.

The Democrats fought hard against the introduction of those pieces of legislation. While I was very frustrated by my inability to prevent passage of the legislation, it has been far more distressing to see the immense human damage which has occurred as a direct consequence—at enormous public expense.

The period in 2001 when these changes were being rammed through the Senate was one of upheaval, following on from the extraordinary Tampa crisis engineered by the Coalition government, and then the shock of the September 11 attacks in the USA. Five years later, many Australians are no longer taken in by the myths propagated by the Government that linked asylum seekers to terrorists and played on community fears and uncertainties.

The introduction of the Excision Acts in 2001 has created suffering and hardship for many refugees who were taken to places like Nauru, Christmas Island and Manus Island. I am the only Australian Parliamentarian who has three times visited the refugees on Nauru, as well as on Christmas Island, and I have seen first hand the despair in these camps and the misery that families, men, women and children have endured for years because of these laws.

Although unfortunately there has never been a comprehensive examination by a Parliamentary Committee of what occurred with asylum seekers on Nauru and Manus Island, some partial examination has now occurred as part of a number of wider Senate Committee inquiries. The Senate Reports of the Select Committee Inquiry into a Certain Maritime Incident (usually known as the Children Overboard Inquiry) in 2003, the Legal and Constitution References Committee inquiry into the administration of the Migration Act in 2006, and most recently the Legal and Constitution Legislation Committee inquiry into the Migration Amendment (Designated Unauthorised Arrivals) Bill 2006 each contain evidence of the maladministration and injustice that has occurred.

The 2001 Excision Acts places refugees in a Guantanamo Bay situation, outside the reach of the rule of law, with no legal protection of their rights and no guarantee of proper scrutiny and accountability. This is an unacceptable law for a modern democracy to have in place.

These two Private Senators Bills will repeal and abolish these offensive provisions. I commend these bills to the Senate.

I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.