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

I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

This is the Immigration Ombudsman’s report that I referred to previously that actually details all of those people who have been in prolonged immigration detention and who have not been reported on previously. I should say a few things. Firstly, the very fact that these reports are tabled is a result of the determination of some people within the Liberal Party a couple of years ago to say enough was enough and that we needed to do something about the number of people who were being locked up for far too long without proper scrutiny. Mr Georgiou, the member for Kooyong, is the most well-known of those, but there were a number of others. It is because of their efforts—and some others who bolstered the work in the preceding years—that this material is available to us. It is an immensely valuable resource and is important right here and now in terms of looking at the circumstances of the people involved. It is a fairly thick document with lots of words, but all of those words deal with individual human beings who, in many cases, have suffered enormously as a direct consequence of the laws that were passed by this place over preceding decades and that still stand to this day.

Being aware of this is one thing, having more transparency with reports being provided to the parliament and spoken about, is another; but more action is still required. Again, it is worth while and beneficial that the new minister has committed himself to action to resolve these things. Resolution does not always mean giving a person a visa. In the previous Immigration Ombudsman’s report I spoke to, the minister noted that in some of the cases he examined he was not satisfied there were strong compassionate or humanitarian claims that warranted his intervention and therefore he consented to their removal, and the person was removed. That is the outcome for a number of people. Frankly, in many cases it would be far better for everybody—the taxpayer, the Australian community, advocates and the detainee themselves—if the whole issue could be resolved much more quickly. If they are going to end up being removed, they should be removed from Australia much earlier for their own wellbeing and for everybody else’s wellbeing. That is the situation we need to move towards. I certainly hope that we do that.

It also needs to be emphasised that the Immigration Ombudsman’s report before the Senate reinforces the fact that there are an enormous number of people who are still suffering in prolonged detention only because of the perversity of the detention requirements in our immigration laws. There has been some commentary in the last week or so about the negative application of the minister’s discretionary powers on a high proportion of people. Understandably, some of those advocates who have supported and assisted detainees for a prolonged period of time are very upset about that. I share their distress. It is impossible for me, without individual details of each case, to pass judgement on how well the minister has exercised his discretion. But, while I appreciate and support his view that the significant number of ministerial discretion cases that are outstanding need to be resolved as quickly as possible, I urge the minister not to slip into a mindset, which could easily happen when trying to resolve a backlog, of knocking things out one after the other in a sausage machine sort of way. These cases involve human beings and it may well be in some cases that the best decision has not been made.

In this context, I want to refer to the announcement in the budget last night—it was a promise and a policy; nonetheless it is always welcome to see it affirmed—to abolish temporary protection visas. This visa class was passed by this parliament, by the Labor Party and the coalition voting together in 1999. Over the next nine years it caused immense suffering to a lot of people for absolutely no good reason. It was appalling that it was passed in the first place. It is immensely welcome that it is now being abolished. I very much congratulate the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Senator Evans, and the government as a whole for finally abolishing this disgraceful, iniquitous, destructive, harmful, inefficient, expensive, stupid and brutal visa category, and consigning it to history. That is certainly a cause for celebration.

Questioned agreed to.