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

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Attorney-General (Senator Brandis) to a question without notice asked by Senator McKim today relating to boat turn-backs, Manus Island and Nauru.

Senator Brandis interjecting—

I will take that interjection from the Attorney, who I believe just said, 'Three years and no deaths at sea.' We can follow this up, and I will be following this up at Senate estimates next week, because I do not believe that you can say that, Attorney, unless you have tracked every single one of the 29 boats from the moment they were turned back to the moment they arrived safely in port somewhere else in the world. But if you are telling that your government has done that—in fact, are you telling me, Attorney, that your government is doing that? Deathly silence!

Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator McKim, resume your seat, please. May I remind senators to address their remarks to the chair.

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

Through you, Madam—

Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Resume your seat, Senator McKim.

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I take it that instruction was directed, at least in part, at me. The reason I interjected was to respond to a question put directly to me by Senator McKim.

Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Brandis.

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

I accept that I may have encouraged a response from the Attorney, but the point I am making is very clear. The simple fact is that I do not believe that the Attorney can make the statement he just made, that in three years no-one has died at sea in the context of people seeking asylum and boat turn-backs from Australia. Certainly the Attorney cannot make the claim that none of the at least 740 people who were aboard boats that have been turned back under Operation Sovereign Borders have died because they were refouled—that is, returned from whence they came in contravention of our international obligations.

This is a very significant matter, because the entire premise of Operation Sovereign Borders was to respond to what we can all agree were tragic deaths at sea, including many people who were seeking asylum in this country, and there is nobody in this place who would describe those deaths as anything other than tragic. However, you cannot solve a human rights crisis by creating another human rights crisis, and that is exactly what Operation Sovereign Borders has done. We know that of the men currently on Manus Island—98 per cent of whom, by the way, have been found by the Papua New Guinea government to be genuine refugees—88 per cent have been found by UNHCR psychological experts to have mental health issues caused as a result of their incarceration on Manus Island. That is a human rights crisis.

Again, as Operation Sovereign Borders was premised on trying to respond to tragic events, nothing that the Attorney or the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection has said this week has convinced me that when we turn boats back we are not turning people around to die somewhere else. That is why Australia has signed up to non-refoulement principles and it is why it is such a tragedy that we are in breach of the non-refoulement principles that we have signed up to uphold.

I believe the Attorney, in additional information he provided, has indicated to the Senate—and I will check the Hansardthat the 29 boats and the 740 people that I mentioned in my first question today are actually the sum total of the number of boats and the number of people on those boats that have been turned back. I will check the Hansard to ensure that my preliminary understanding is correct. But, of course, one of the problems around turn-backs is the veil of secrecy that the government has drawn over what is going on in international waters, in Australian waters and potentially in the waters of other countries. It is instructive, isn't it, that in fact now we are getting journalists, including from TheDaily Telegraph and A Current Affair,embedded in Operation Sovereign Borders' missions in order to provide an opportunity for electoral support garnering by this government and particularly by the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, Mr Dutton. Of course, when it suits the government politically and electorally to draw back the veil of secrecy, they are quite happy to do that. When they are worried that drawing back the veil of secrecy will help one of their political opponents mount an argument that we should stop turning back people or that we should close Manus Island and Nauru, they are not so quick to pull back that veil of secrecy. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.