Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I ask that general business notice of motion 444 standing in my name for today relating to the proposed legislation relating to asylum seekers be taken as a formal motion.

Stephen Parry (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is there any objection? Senator Hanson-Young, are you denying leave?

Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

South Australia I seek leave to move an amendment to the motion.

Stephen Parry (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can we wait until we put the motion. There is no objection to the motion being taken as formal. Senator Abetz.

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate rejects the Government's attempts to provide inadequate protections for asylum seekers in its proposed legislation to resurrect its Malaysian asylum seeker deal.

Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to move an amendment to motion 444.

Stephen Parry (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is leave granted?

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I invite Senator Hanson-Young to indicate her amendment prior to seeking leave. That might assist the process.

Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am seeking leave to flag the amendment.

Stephen Parry (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Rather than having leave denied, we could do with it this way. If Senator Hanson-Young seeks leave to indicate to the chamber the nature of the amendment—

Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to be able to move the amendment.

Stephen Parry (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Leave has been sought just to move the amendment. Is leave granted?

Leave not granted.

Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Pursuant to contingent notice and at the request of the Leader of the Australian Greens, Senator Bob Brown, I move:

That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent me from moving an amendment to the motion.

Stephen Parry (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am advised by the Clerk there is no contingent motion that you can act upon. Senator Hanson-Young, can I deal with Senator Ludwig, who wishes to make a short statement, and then we will come back to the matter.

Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Government Business in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I want to assist in the proceedings this afternoon. I know leave usually has to be given before the amendment. That is the usual thing. However, I have from this position often asked what the nature of the amendment is because it then informs me as to whether I will decide to grant leave or not. In that instance you can, in my view seek leave, and I would give it, to explain the amendment before we then end up in a position of suspending standing orders to deal with it. This is a way to expedite the arrangement and allow the opposition, or the government for that matter, to hear what the amendment may be and consider it.

Stephen Parry (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Ludwig. I did give that opportunity to Senator Hanson-Young but I think she was fairly determined on her course of action. Is that correct? Would you like to revisit this and take the opportunity of explaining, by leave, the nature of your amendment?

Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am happy to explain, by leave, the nature of my amendment and then seek leave.

Stephen Parry (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Leave is granted for you to do that for two minutes.

Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The amendment would replace the words after 'Senate' with 'calls on the government and the opposition to uphold Australia's obligations to the 1951 Refugee Convention'.

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The amendment negates the whole motion.

Leave not granted.

Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Pursuant to contingent notice and at the request of the Leader of the Australian Greens, I move that such standing orders be suspended as would prevent me moving the amendment to the motion.

Stephen Parry (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Hanson-Young, I am advised by the Clerk that there is no specific contingent motion for you to do that. You can move to suspend standing orders but you would need then the concurrence of an absolute majority of the Senate to do that. You can move to suspend standing orders but not pursuant to a contingent motion.

Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That standing orders be suspended.

I would like to be able to move the amendment to this motion because we know that the motion put forward by Senator Abetz is pure hypocrisy. We know that the government has a bad plan when it comes to dumping vulnerable people in Malaysia. We know it contravenes the 1951 Refugee Convention. We also know that the opposition's plan of dumping vulnerable people in Nauru would contravene the 1951 convention.

It is time that both the government and the opposition recognise that the Australian people are fed up with the hypocrisy and with the dirty arguments that not just put the lives of vulnerable people in harm's way but trash Australia's international obligations. We know it is time we had a proper process for dealing with these issues. Why do we drag out the lives of some of the world's most vulnerable people just because there is a political standoff, a squabble, between the government and the opposition? Neither side is standing up for our obligations. Neither side is doing what they should be doing, which is to ensure that our domestic laws concur with our international obligations.

It is absolutely paramount that we do what it is we have signed up to do: assess the claims of asylum seekers here on the Australian mainland. It is what the majority of Australians want; it is the cheapest option; it is the most humane one; and, above all else, it is legal. We should just get on with it. There is absolute rank hypocrisy in this motion, as put forward by Senator Abetz. It does not do anything to add any substance or standard to the level of debate we are seeing not just in this place but in the other place as well. How about the Leader of the Opposition and the Leader of the House actually stand up for what Australia signed up for 60 years: protecting the rights of vulnerable people when they arrive on our doorstep, doing what it is that we should be doing. Stop trashing Australia's international obligations just because of the politics of the day.

We know that onshore processing would be a much simpler option. It would be cheaper, it would be more humane and it is popular. We know that the government does not support Nauru. We know that the opposition does not support Malaysia. We know that offshore processing is bad policy: it is morally wrong; it is illegal; and it is expensive. So just give it up.

There is one thing that is actually right in this debate. It is that both sides are right about the rank hypocrisy of the other. Both sides have sold out. Both sides are participating in a debate based on hypocrisy and backflips. There is absolutely no substance to the issues that go to the heart of the needs of asylum seekers. We should be doing what it is we said we would do under the convention we signed 60 years ago. The question and the amendment that I am putting to the Senate is: will we stand by the convention we signed 60 years ago? Under the government's plan we will not. Under the opposition's plan we will not. Is it that both sides are prepared to shred our international reputation, shred Australia's value of a fair go and throw away 60 years of commitment to the refugee convention? That is exactly what both sides want. That is the effect of both proposals—Malaysia and Nauru.

What a sad point we have got to in this debate when we are being forced to choose between dumping children in Malaysia and dumping children in Nauru. There is a much better solution; it is an Australian option. It means assessing the claims of asylum seekers onshore here on the mainland, as most Australians would like us to do. It is cheaper, more humane and it is legal. That is what this amendment is about: asking both the coalition and the government to do exactly what we have already signed up to do, which is to abide by our obligations under the 1951 refugee convention. If you are not interested in that, why not just say so? Stop playing with the lives of vulnerable people. Stop pretending that you care when clearly you do not. All you care about is the political points you are trying to make on the way through. And thank heavens the Australian people are wise enough to see through the hypocrisy and the sell-outs and ensure a better solution. (Time expired)

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It seems that the Australian Greens are as confused about the standing orders of this place as they are in relation to their immigration and asylum-seeker policy stance. We heard from the Greens that we are dealing with allegedly the most vulnerable people, those who are paying literally thousands and thousands of dollars to people-smugglers to come to Australia. They freely enter Indonesia, they travel there freely with no problems at all and then pay a criminal people-smuggler to get them to Australia, having thousands of dollars at their disposal. Somehow, they are the most vulnerable people.

Forget those who have been rotting in refugee camps around the world, not for weeks or months but for over a decade. There are literally millions of them all around the world. We in Australia need to ask ourselves this one question: do we want to be engaged in the humane resettlement of refugees? Overwhelmingly, the answer is yes, as it should be. The next question is: to whom out of the millions of refugees in the world should we be giving priority? We in the coalition make no bones about the fact that we do not believe priority should be given to the rich, who can afford to pay criminals to force their way into Australia and who turn a blind eye to our obligation to those who are sitting in camps in Somalia, in Kenya and in other places in Africa, where they have been for well over a decade.

For somebody like me, who works with my local refugee communities in Hobart, to be told I am a hypocrite on this is quite offensive. When you hear their tales of having been in refugee camps for up to 15 years you get an understanding of why these particular refugees are so offended when priority is being given to the criminal boat-people smuggling operations. That is why the coalition put in place a policy that worked to stop this criminal activity, which also puts lives at risk. We stopped it with the Nauru solution. The Labor Party deliberately dismantled that policy, and guess what: the influx of boats occurred and the influx of illegal arrivals re-entered the Australian scene. This disrupted the orderly resettlement of refugees into Australia that we had, in cooperation with the United Nations. We had a policy which worked. Labor dismantled it. Now, seeing the folly of their ways, Labor are trying to make themselves more hairy-chested than we as a coalition were in this space. We say to them that their Malaysia solution, where people can be caned for disobeying orders in Malaysia, is inhumane. The Labor Party themselves set the benchmark for offshore processing that the country should be a signatory to the UN convention. Well, Nauru is; Malaysia is not. All we have done is suggest to the government that they should adopt the Nauru solution, the Manus Island solution, and dump the Malaysia solution, where we were going to be giving them one of our illegal entrants for five of theirs, a swap which, in anybody's language, was not good. In relation to today's motion, it is simply calling on the Senate to reject:

... the Government's attempts to provide inadequate protections for asylum seekers in its proposed legislation to resurrect its Malaysian asylum seeker deal.

I would have thought the Australian Greens would support such a motion, but of course it is splitting them away from their Labor alliance partners and they now, undoubtedly in a deal with Labor, are trying to scuttle around to come up with an excuse as to why not to support this motion. As a result, the hapless Senator Hanson-Young has been called in to move an amendment which seeks to negate this. We say the Malaysia solution is not a solution, because it is inhumane and in breach of our international obligations, whereas the Nauru solution is workable, proven and humane. (Time expired)

Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Government Business in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We are now debating the issue, as it seems people have wanted to do. I remind people that there was a meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Procedure which gave the Senate this advice:

The committee has considered the operation of standing order 66 on numerous occasions—

so it is certainly not the first time this has occurred—

Standing order 66(3) provides that a formal motion shall be put and determined without amendment or debate. Current difficulties—

including this one—

are largely attributable to senators seeking leave to depart from these rules and the Senate granting leave, almost as a matter of course. In particular, the number of statements being made by leave in relation to complex motions leads to a de facto debate on those motions, contrary to standing order 66.

So we are not only doing what we are doing now, but we are also being chastised by the Procedure Committee into entering into de facto debates, of which I think this is one:

This is because senators, instead of making statements, assert views in the nature of debate by mounting arguments and responding to positions expressed by others.

While the committee recommends no changes to standing order 66, noting its value as a daily opportunity for motions from all sources and of all types to be put to the vote, it urges senators to pay more heed to the existing restrictions. For example, if a senator wishes to amend—

as we tried to do today—

a notice of motion, then generally, as a courtesy to the Senate, that notice should be postponed till the next day of sitting to enable the senator to use the procedures under standing order 77 to amend the notice in writing and for the notice to appear in its amended form in the next day's Notice Paper.

That is so that the Senate and everyone in the chamber and everyone who is not in the chamber can be given an opportunity to look at what that amendment is and participating, and at least being informed about what is happening in the chamber:

Secondly, the committee encourages parties to use internal means to limit the number of senators seeking leave to make statements on motions to one from each group,

Now, because of the way things have unfolded, we have entered into a motion to suspend. We should actually be arguing why the suspension is needed, not the substantive debate on the motion itself. Anyone listening to the debate would think we were debating the substantive motion. We should be arguing as to why this suspension should proceed. I note you can include parts of your argument within that because there is wide scope and latitude. So I am not particularly taking anyone to task in relation to that. I am sure I will also fall under the rule sometimes in these debates.

  What I want to highlight specifically is that we should not now, if we are unsuccessful in an amendment or unsuccessful in seeking leave to take a statement, go through the process of then moving to a suspension to have the de facto argument. Otherwise we will take up significant time of the chamber. The government does have its business to get on with. It does want to continue with the program. We have taken note of remaining issues to be dealt with, other parts of the program. It is important to get to legislation, so I remind senators that this is an opportunity to put motions without debate, rather than going through this convoluted procedure of seeking a suspension so that we can be heard in relation to a debate.

I do not take anyone to task. I just wish to remind all senators that this is the purpose of this time—to put matters without debate so that their particular issues can be made known, rather than soaking up the time of the Senate with the complex motions we are now engaged in. The government will not be supporting the motion to suspend on the basis that the government wants to get on with the business of the Senate and not be bogged down in dealing with these motions. For those reasons, as I have said, we will not be supporting the motion.

Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The process here is one of denying amendments to motions that are put up for formality and we have had a series of denials of those amendments in the Senate in recent days. Senators may notice that has not stopped the effect of the amendments coming before the chamber as they doing that as whole motions seriatim and that will continue. I think, however, that where amendments are to be moved to the motions there ought to be a better mechanism and the amendments ought to be treated with a vote the same as the substantial motions. We have not got to that point yet and here we are debating whether there should be a suspension of standing orders to effectively debate the motion—and I will listen to debate to work that out. But what I do want to say is that Senator Hanson-Young is absolutely right here: what we have is a move by the coalition, which had no compunction a few years ago to be locking up hundreds of children behind razor wire in deserts in Australia to the point where there was psychological scarring for life, now claiming that sending people to this country—

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, that is wrong. That is just false.

Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Abetz, for the record, is denying that happened. Well, I do not know how you deny such an obvious piece of history, but sending people off to Nauru or to Manus Island for that effect and to Malaysia is not only a huge trial upon the wellbeing of people who try to come to this country to escape persecution elsewhere but the wrong thing to do. We are a nation that is mature and that is part of the common global community of nations and we ought to be taking on our responsibilities—and the High Court pointed this out when it turned down the government's legislation effectively to bounce people back off to Malaysia. But it was not just the Malaysian solution that the High Court was ruling out; it was the Nauru solution and the Manus Island solution as well, for example, on the basis that these abrogate Australia's obligation under the refugee convention—which Sarah Hanson-Young has so rightly brought into this debate because it is front and centre—to give people fleeing persecution and coming to our shores access to Australian laws. Whichever one of these offshore options you are looking at it cuts across that requirement of the refugee convention. I notice Senator Abetz, in his delivery, said words to the effect that we swap one illegal entrant for each five of theirs. Let me pull him up on that again—and we must have done that so many times in this chamber. These are not illegal entrants; these people are asylum seekers.

Concetta Fierravanti-Wells (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They are.

Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They are not, Senator Fierravanti-Wells—and that is the problem you have.

Concetta Fierravanti-Wells (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I used to do this for a living. I have deported a lot more people in my career than you have done.

Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This has been happening all day. You are another interjector—

Senator Fierravanti-Wells interjecting—

and a recycled interjector at that on the benches over there—

Opposition senators interjecting—

Stephen Parry (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order on my left!

Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

But it is one of those things, isn't it? They are not illegal entrants. They have a legal right to seek solace in this country. That is what is in the refugee convention, signed under the government of Sir Robert Menzies, or Robert Menzies as he was then. That is what we signed up to way back in the 1950s under a more noble, humane and globally thinking government of the opposition kind more than half a century ago.

Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As has been indicated by Senator Abetz, we will not be supporting the suspension for the simple reason that Senator Hanson-Young's foreshadowed amendment completely changes the intent of Senator Abetz's motion. I agree with Senator Ludwig and Senator Abetz that it would indeed be helpful if the Australian Greens did circulate their amendments in advance. This chamber does operate largely on cooperation and there is usually good cooperation on motions and the intent to seek to amend them, so I think that is something that would be of benefit to the chamber. The motion moved by Senator Abetz does, I think, deserve to be given the opportunity for a straight up or down vote—which the move to suspend and to seek to amend Senator Abetz's motion certainly denies. I also think that, because the government's absolute hypocrisy does deserve to be judged by this chamber, it does warrant the consideration of Senator Abetz's motion unamended.

I do hate to give the Australian Greens some credit at this point but it would not be fair not to recognise that when it comes to asylum seeker policy at least the Australian Greens do have a consistent position. They are against offshore processing, and they have been consistent on that. The Greens are wrong. I think they are sincerely in error but at least on this issue they, unlike the government, do have a clear position. The Australian Labor Party have lost any shred of credibility that they had on the subject of border protection and asylum seeker policy. When those of us on this side were in office, the Australian Labor Party announced that if they were elected they would systematically set about dismantling the coalition's border protection and asylum seeker policy. And they were true to their word, as the Australian Labor Party did that. They abolished offshore processing and they abolished temporary protection visas—they weakened their resolve—which again is something that they undertook to do. We were told that pull factors were not a consideration for people-smugglers, that it was all about push factors and that it was all about factors outside the control of the Australian government. We know now, beyond any doubt, that there are both pull and push factors. What frustrates me incredibly is when I hear the current government say that they want to break the people-smugglers' business model. The truth is that the product that the people smugglers have to sell was given to them by the Australian Labor Party. We hear the government say that they want to bust the business model, but that business model was the one designed by the current government. Our policies were aimed at—and I think they were effective—putting the people smugglers out of business and ensuring that people who were seeking asylum did not put themselves in harm's way. That was a good thing. That meant that we did not have people at risk on the high seas with their lives in peril.

On this side of the chamber we are not interested in public acts of conspicuous compassion. We care about effective compassion—having policies that do good and take people out of harm's way. Our policies were effective. We heard initially from the current government of the East Timor solution—nothing came of that. We heard of the Malaysian solution—to date, nothing has come of that. The government is running away from any policy that will actually work. We had the farcical situation at the South Pacific Forum where Prime Minister Gillard was basically jumping behind pot plants to hide from the President of Nauru. We thought At Home with Julia was a farce; you ain't seen nothing until you have seen 'Away with Julia'. It is a bit like that Fawlty Towers episode about the war—'I think I mentioned it once but I think I got away with it.' 'I think I mentioned Nauru only once but I think I got away with it.' It was a farcical situation.

The government deserves to be condemned for its asylum seeker policy. It has no policy. The policy, such as it is, has put people in harm's way. It should adopt our Nauru solution with TPVs and a strengthened resolve. Senator Abetz's motion deserves to be put unamended.

Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to concur with the comments of the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, Senator Eric Abetz, and my colleague Senator Fifield. We are currently debating a motion by Senator Hanson-Young to suspend standing orders to allow an amendment to general business notice of motion No. 444 to be moved. I have searched high and low and I have asked my colleagues if they have a copy of the amendment for me—I understand that Senator Hanson Young was asked to reread the amendment out to the Senate—but, to date, I do not know about you, Mr Acting Deputy President, but I have been unable to find a copy of the amendment.

When the Greens come into this chamber and stand here and talk about process and the failure of some to follow process, maybe they would like to have a look at their own conduct in relation to this particular motion. There is a very good reason that those on this side of the chamber will not be supporting Senator Hanson-Young's suspension motion, and that is that Senator Hanson-Young has failed to give this chamber the courtesy that is due to it. I acknowledge the comments made by Senator Ludwig on debating these types of motions, but when the Greens come into this chamber and stand up and completely misrepresent the position of the coalition in putting forward the motion it is incumbent upon those on this side—as those on the other side would do if they were in the same position as us—to come in here and defend their position. There is a very good reason that Senator Abetz has put forward this motion. If the Greens choose not to support this motion, then quite frankly that is their problem and they can go and justify to their supporters why they are supporting a motion that condemns government policy for its inadequate protections for people that we—Australia—will be transferring to Malaysia.

Let me tell you what the coalition will not support, and these are the reasons we have put forward this motion. We on this side of the chamber will not support legislation that will allow the Australian government to send asylum seekers to a country that has not signed the UNHCR convention. We on this side will not support legislation that allows the Australian government to send asylum seekers to a country where, in the last five years, almost 30,000 refugees were caned—that is 16 floggings a day—and that is mandated by an act of parliament in Malaysia. We on this side will not support legislation that allows the Australian government—and that is a government that is only in government because of its coalition with the Greens—to take children to Malaysia where they will not be able to have proper schooling. We on this side will not support legislation that allows the Australian government, again, to transfer refugees to Malaysia where they will have access to only one UNHCR funded medical clinic, which they will have to share with 94,000 other refugees.

The coalition—and this is the reason for Senator Abetz's motion—in good conscience cannot support such morally objectionable legislation. The reason the Greens want to move the amendment is that they too know that the government is wrong. They know the government is wrong in what it is doing and, if the government is wrong, the Greens should be sitting on this side of the chamber with the coalition condemning their coalition partners. The coalition will make no apology whatsoever for their own tough and uncompromising policies on border protection, because what we did—unlike what the Greens want to do—was stop the boats. Do you know what happens when you stop the boats? You stop people risking their lives to get to this country and dying in the process. If the Greens had their way, they would have onshore processing. Do you know what that means? That means they do not want to stop the boats and they support policies that will cause people to be drowned.

Question put:

That the motion ( Senator Hanson-Young's) be agreed to.

Question negatived. Original question put:

That the motion (Senator Abetz's) be agreed to.

The Senate divided. [16:18]

(The President—Senator JJ Hogg)

Senator Arbib did not vote, to compensate for the vacancy caused by the resignation of Senator Coonan

Question negatived.