Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I inform the Senate that at 8.30 am this morning, Senators Gallagher and Siewert each submitted a letter in accordance with standing order 75, proposing a matter of public importance. The question of which proposal would be submitted to the Senate was determined by lot. As a result, I inform the Senate that the following letter has been received from Senator Siewert:

Pursuant to standing order 75, I propose that the following matter of public importance be submitted to the Senate for discussion:

The brutal detention of refugees on Manus Island and Nauru, and the government's cynical effort to amend the Migration Act to bar them from ever entering Australia.

Is the proposal supported?

More than the number of senators required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

The proposal is supported. I understand that informal arrangements have been made to allocate specific times to each of the speakers in today’s debate. With the concurrence of the Senate, I shall ask the clerks to set the clock accordingly.

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

It is worth starting this contribution with a clear statement of fact: the government's so-called border protection policies have failed in every conceivable way. This is a government that have a policy framework in extreme disarray. Firstly, they have failed in human terms—the basic test.

Senator Bushby interjecting—

The basic test, Senator Bushby—they have failed in human terms, because they rely on the deliberate mistreatment of men, women and children in Australia's detention centre network. Make no mistake: people have died at their own hand as a result of this government's policy and the neglect of this government. Others have been badly injured and there is a toll, as yet unrevealed, specifically in terms of those who have been left traumatised and mentally scarred, no doubt in many cases for life, because of this government's policy. So the cost in human terms has been absolutely massive. Remember, Amnesty International, an extremely well-regarded non-political international organisation, has found that what is happening to people on Nauru fits the internationally accepted definition of torture. What do we get from the government in response to that allegation? We get a blanket denial, with no engagement at all on the detail of what constitutes torture, on the detail of what we are doing to these poor children, women and men on Nauru. It is effectively a government that is putting its fingers in its ears and saying, 'La, la, la,' every time something is said that it disagrees with.

There is still no solution for the people on Manus Island and Nauru. The Papua New Guinean foreign minister said just yesterday that the Manus refugee processing centre is undergoing final phases of shutting down. If it is in the final phases of shutting down, as the Papua New Guinean government is saying publicly, what is going to happen to those poor people who are incarcerated there in Australia's name? What is going to happen to them? The answer from the government is deafening silence. We know from public statements made by Australian ministers that the Australian government is in negotiation with other countries to try to find a resettlement option for the people on Manus Island and Nauru when the only reasonable settlement option is staring them in the face: bring those people, our fellow human beings, back to Australia so that we can look after them properly in line with our moral obligation to them and in line with our international obligations under instruments such as the refugee convention.

We have seen sad tale after sad tale. The Nauru files made it abundantly clear that we have seen widespread violence and abuse, including sexual abuse, against men, children and women who have sought Australia's protection. They reach out a hand, asking us to look after them, to help them, and we kick them in the face. We subject them to arbitrary imprisonment and we expose them to conditions of torture.

The Nauru files also made clear the deliberate under-reporting and downplaying of serious incidents on Nauru. As the landmark Island of despair report from Amnesty International recently made clear, what is happening on Nauru is torture and it is Australia's responsibility. For the Attorney to come here and to quote a High Court case, as he did earlier today, that found that Australia is not responsible for what is happening on Nauru simply ignores reality. We are funding every single dollar of expenditure on Nauru. Every single dollar of expenditure on the detention centre on Nauru is being funded by the Australian taxpayer. What the government is doing is outsourcing cruelty and torture. That is what our government is doing.

The framework is also in disarray because we are witnessing contractor after contractor abandoning offshore detention in absolute droves because they know that they are suffering extreme reputational damage by being associated with such cruel and draconian conditions. We have seen Wilson Security and Broadspectrum pull out of providing services on Manus and on Nauru after strong public campaigns against them. So we are seeing contractor after contractor voting with their feet and saying that they do not want their company associated with what is going on on Manus and on Nauru due to the reputational damage they are suffering.

The policy has also been a failure in pure financial terms, so it is not just the massive human cost that we are dealing with here. In pure dollar terms, the cost of Operation Sovereign Borders has blown out to almost $10 billion in the last three years. The Australia National Audit Office found that the department was not following government procedure in issuing tenders, which has resulted in massive overspends. It also found that Australia's policy framework is costing well over half a million dollars—in fact, $573,000—per detainee per year. This is a government that spent the last few years warning Australia that we had a budget crisis. Well, if we have a budget crisis, why on earth would they implement a policy regime that has cost well over half a million dollars per person per year to detail people on Manus and on Nauru.

At the core of this government's policy is an overwhelming desire for secrecy because the government simply does not want the rest of the world to know what is being done in our name. That is why section 42 of the Border Force Act imposes terms of imprisonment for up to two years for people who blow the whistle on what is going on on Manus Island and on Nauru. How instructive that, in fact, that provision has recently been overturned for doctors because a group of doctors had a High Court case coming up.

But, if it is good enough to remove the gag from doctors, what about teachers, nurses and the many other categories of support workers who operate on Manus and on Nauru. They still remain caught by section 42 of the Border Force Act. They still face a term of imprisonment for up to two years if they speak publicly about what they have witnessed in those places. This is a commitment to secrecy almost unparalleled in recent Australian history. This is a government that knows that it ought to be ashamed of what it is doing and a government that has a commitment to secrecy that is, quite frankly, disgusting and disgraceful.

One day the truth will come out. The full truth of the horrors of this regime and this policy framework will come out. There will be a truth and reconciliation style process. Mark my words; one day in the future, and I do not know when it will be, an Australian Prime Minister will stand up in this parliament and apologise for what is being done today and what has been done over the last few years. Yes, that will be a great day and, yes, that is a necessary thing to occur, but this is happening today. The solution is obvious: engage with our regional partners and come up with a cooperative policy framework that has reasonable times for assessing people's claims for asylum and their claims for refugee status and ensure that those time frames are followed. It is not the situation now, where you front up in Kuala Lumpur at the UNHCR office and get told to come back in three years time for your first appointment. We need a comprehensive policy solution. It can only be delivered on a regional basis—that is, Australia working collaboratively with other countries in our region. Yes, we should contribute financially to it. We can do that by closing the camps and bringing the people who are in those camps here to Australia, and save the $3 billion a year plus that it is currently costing us to run those camps.

This is a policy failure, because although the mantra of this government is, 'The boats have stopped,' in fact we know that they have not—on the government's own admission. This government and the previous government under Tony Abbott have, on their own figures, turned back or intercepted 30 boats since Operation Sovereign Borders started three years ago. They are running at about one a month, on the government's own figures. They are just the ones they are admitting to. They are the ones that we know have been turned back and intercepted. So, when the Attorney gets up and says, 'No people have died at sea,' it is a claim he cannot reasonably make because that claim would rely on the government knowing exactly when boats set off to sea. We know that they do not know that, because many of those boats have nearly made it to Australia before they have been turned back or intercepted. I ask the government: how many people have died between their boats setting out to sea and the government first becoming aware of them? The answer, of course, is that the government do not know. None of us know. To assert that no-one has died at sea is a falsehood. The government cannot reasonably make that claim.

What of the ones that we do turn back? We are turning back people to die somewhere else. We are turning back people to face arbitrary detention, arbitrary imprisonment, torture and potentially death. This idea that no-one is dying under this government's policy is quite simply untrue. The government cannot possibly make that claim.

So we have a military-like shroud of secrecy that has been thrown over this government's nonsensical, ineffective, inconsistent policy framework, where the best they can do is say 'no comment' on operational matters because that is the phrase they use to keep the Australian people in the dark about what is going on. Make no mistake, a Prime Minister will apologise for what is happening today in the future. That will be a necessary step in the healing that this country needs to undergo to get over the cruel and inhumane policies of today.

James Paterson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to participate in this debate today, and I thank the Greens and Senator McKim for moving this motion. It is funny, in a way, that the government is very happy to talk about this issue and the Greens are very happy to talk about this issue. We are happy to talk about this issue because we have a record that we are proud of—and I will come to that in a moment. The Greens are happy to talk about this issue because they have a very sincere and deeply held belief on this issue—I do not share it and I think it is a bit strange—and they have been prosecuting their point of view on this issue consistently for many years. What I have left out there is the Labor Party. Interestingly, on the day on which they finally resolved their position on this issue and declared their hand—that they would be opposing the proposed legislation by Minister Dutton—they did not ask a single question in question time in the Senate today about this issue. It fell to Senator McKim to ask a question on behalf of the Greens. It fell to Senator Reynolds to ask a question about it on behalf of the government.

Those opposite showed a curious lack of interest in this issue—although I am looking forward to Senator Carr's contribution to the debate shortly. Personally, I do not think Senator Carr has a great deal to be proud of. Senator Carr was part of a government which at the encouragement of, in part, the Greens presided over one of the greatest public policy failures in the 21st century. I think there will be an apology by a future Australian Prime Minister, as Senator McKim said, but it will not be for the strong border protection policies that this government has implemented, nor the strong border protection policies that John Howard and his government implemented, both of which saved lives; it will in fact be the border protection—or lack thereof—policies that prevailed between 2007 and 2013 which wreaked a trail of human havoc and misery for six years, for which those opposite have still not been held responsible but should bear great shame.

This is their record. In 2007, when they came to government, they were warned: 'Do not weaken John Howard's successful, strong border protection policies. If you do, there will be serious consequences.' Opposition leaders Nelson, Turnbull and Abbott all pleaded with various iterations of that government to not water down and weaken John Howard's successful border protection policies. They did not follow that advice. They ignored that advice. And the result of ignoring that advice was that, over six years, 50,000 illegal maritime arrivals came on 800 boats. Over 8,000 children were placed into detention. We know of at least 1,200 deaths that occurred at sea—although there may have been more. There was an $11 billion blowout in the border protection budget and there were 17 new detention centres opened.

I remember, in the dying days of the Howard government, the great criticism made of the detention centres in operation. They were many fewer than the number that had to be opened and operated under the Labor government under former prime ministers Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard. I remember all the criticisms of the harsh conditions in detention centres. By the end of the Howard government—and again under this government—there were no people experiencing those conditions. But, under the former Labor government, 8,000 children alone experienced those conditions.

By contrast, this government has a very proud record of recognising the problem created by our predecessors, acting to fix that problem and having success in doing so. Under our watch, there have been no deaths at sea. That is despite the fact that, when we were in opposition, we were warned that if we implemented a policy of boat turn-backs, tough border protection policies—temporary protection visas and other measures—there would be deaths at sea and human carnage from that. We were warned not just that it was wrong and not just that it would not work but that it was illegal and immoral. But we proceeded with our policy and it has been a stunning success. There have now been 835 days without a boat arrival. All the children who were put in detention by the previous Labor government are now out of detention. The 17 detention centres that were opened under their watch have now been closed, and our humanitarian intake is to be increased from 13,750 to 18,750 by 2018-19.

I have to borrow a phrase from one of my distinguished colleagues, Senator Abetz, who, commenting recently on Kevin Rudd's opinion piece on this issue, said that it was very much reminiscent of an arsonist returning to a fire and giving a lecture to the firefighters about how to fight that fire. Sadly, we have seen, with the decision taken by the opposition today, that they too are arsonists coming back to lecture firefighters.

In 2013, members opposite were part of a government that ran an expensive, lavish taxpayer-funded advertising campaign. It featured grainy writing; it featured photos of boats; it was translated into many languages; it was published here in Australia and overseas; and it said, 'If you come here by boat, you will never be settled in Australia.' This government and Peter Dutton are trying to put into effect that promise, made in 2013 by Kevin Rudd and those opposite.

There are two options here for those opposite. One is to admit that they were insincere in 2013, that they did not really believe it. They were just pretending to be tough on border protection because they knew there would be political consequences if they did not, and because they were aware of their failings while in government. The other option is that they have changed their minds since. That is fair and reasonable, because we do all change our minds. But if they have changed their minds, they should admit it and should explain why Bill Shorten's promise, made prior to this election, that he would be a carbon copy of the coalition when it comes to border protection, was also false. Their record on this issue is nothing to be proud of. By contrast, we in the coalition can be very proud of our great success in this policy area.

Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader for Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is great to be here and to follow Senator Paterson and his remarks. I am not surprised that he is quoting Senator Abetz, because they are bedfellows in many ways. It strikes me that this government has demonstrated that its measures to impose a lifetime ban on entry to Australia for asylum seekers who arrive by boat are crazy and desperate politics. It is crazy because the ban would even exclude people who have been assessed as genuine refugees and have been settled in a third country who then seek to make temporary visits to Australia on business or as tourists. It is desperate because it is a measure of just how far this government is prepared to go to win over the xenophobes of One Nation. And it is a measure of the obsequious capitulation of this Prime Minister to the very hard right elements of Senator Paterson's type within the Liberal Party and the National Party, in a desperate attempt to stay afloat in what is a drowning government. The implication of this measure has not been lost on One Nation. Senator Hanson and Senator Roberts have both crowed about the assertion that they are in fact responsible for this government's measures.

This bill, proposed by this government, is in fact very broad in its sweep. It would permanently exclude from Australia, in all circumstances, anyone who is over the age of 18 when they are taken to Manus or Nauru—that is, anyone taken after 19 July 2013. It may well be that these people are still in an offshore centre. It may well be that they are in a detention centre in Australia. It may well be that they are in community detention in Australia. It may well be that they are people who have voluntarily resolved to return to their country of origin. They may well be people who have resettled in a third country.

This measure, that this government announced, would affect 3,000 people. It is a blanket exclusion, and the very idea of it is so ridiculous, if anyone actually thought about it for any length of time at all. We would see a person excluded who is a refugee who was settled in another country and wishes to come to this country as a tourist. And that may well be in 10 or 20 years time. That in itself is sufficiently ludicrous, I would have thought.

Just think about this for a moment. Are we talking about a surgeon who might want to come here to attend a medical conference? Are we talking about a person who came to Australia as a refugee, was resettled in another country and who ends up winning a Nobel Prize? What would happen to those folks? Of course we might even have a person who has been a refugee, settles in another country and ends up being the Prime Minister of another country! Under these measures, they would be excluded. The government says, 'Yes, but there is this "ministerial discretion".' How ludicrous would it be if a prominent person, a prominent citizen of another country, cannot visit this country on a temporary visa because they had once sought refugee protection in this country and arrived by boat? If they arrived by plane, of course they would not be affected. That measure would not apply. They would have to rely upon the good graces of a future politician, in this case a minister, to show the appropriate discretion in those circumstances.

Labor have made it perfectly clear: we support the offshore processing of people who do arrive by boat. And while we do say that those persons should not settle in this country, it is a very different measure to propose that they should never visit Australia. Of course the attempts to verbal Labor with regard to this know very few limits. What we are seeing in this circumstance is just how far this government is prepared to go to try to wedge Labor. We know that this is a proposition that flies in the face of common humanity. Labor have always said, 'Yes, we want offshore processing', but we have made it very clear that it cannot be on the basis of indefinite detention. We never ever have said that the conditions of confinement of detention in themselves should be a deterrent for people seeking to apply for refugee status in this country. But that is exactly what has happened under this government: the very conditions on Nauru and Manus have been used by this government as a deterrent in itself.

The inhumanity of that proposition has drawn worldwide protest. And this measure that the government is proposing now goes even further, because it demonstrates that in these circumstances there is no depth to which this government will not sink to when it comes to the question of seeking to actually force people into a position of demonising refugees. This is irrespective of the international implications of this measure. It has been made perfectly clear that Labor would not support breaches of international law. And we have a situation where the UNHCR regional representatives in Canberra have made some comments on this matter. What we are raising are very serious concerns: Australia is a signatory to the Refugee Convention, and in article 31 it states:

2. The Contracting States shall not apply to the movements of such refugees restrictions other than those which are necessary and such restrictions shall only be applied until their status in the country is regularized or they obtain admission into another country.

Professor Ben Saul, the Challis Professor of International Law at the University of Sydney, has raised very serious concerns about the government's approach in terms of its potential breaches of Australia's international law obligation. He argues that this measure breaches article 31 of the Refugee Convention as well as Australia's family reunion obligations under article 17 and article 23 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

This is a situation where the government is quite prepared to verbal its opponents, is quite prepared to say and do anything to try to justify its actions. And what we know is that under these circumstances it is constantly engaged in a downward spiral of brutality when it comes to the question of asylum seekers. We demean ourselves as a country when we allow that type of behaviour to go unchallenged. We simply cannot allow people to be abused in our name in that way. That is why the Labor Party were very keen to participate in the Senate inquiry into the reports of abuse on Nauru. And we have sought to ensure that our offshore facilities are subject to proper independent oversight, because we want to make sure that we do not have a circumstance where our international reputation as a compassionate society is actually brought into question.

This government argues that this is now a matter of national security. Is there any limit to the hyperbole that we are going to be subjected to on these questions? We have seen a government that has offered no rational and certainly no consistent explanation for why these measures are necessary. That is why we are left with the conclusion that this is a government that is desperate to find yet another example to divide the community. This is another example of the way in which it seeks to demonise refugees no matter what the circumstances of their departure from other countries have been or the conditions under which they are held. Instead of paying proper attention to finding alternative sites for people to take up residence in another country, this is a government that is now seeking to use this as a device to delude the Australian people about its actual intentions here.

We have on Nauru a situation where thousands of people have been left completely without hope of future engagement and without the prospect that they are entitled to have of saying that the people who are detaining them—the legal fiction is that it is the government of Nauru, but the reality is that it is the actions of this government—have obligations to ensure they are treated humanely and that their conditions are not in themselves part of any deterrent regime. This government has an obligation to ensure that there are third-party settlement arrangements put in place.

The government is deluding itself if it thinks there is widespread support in the Australian community for these types of demeaning measures. My office has been subjected to quite a large amount of correspondence and a number of complaints on this matter. I have not seen anything quite like it from such a wide group of people who are genuinely concerned that this is a bridge far too far.

Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the issue of the brutal detention of refugees on Nauru and Manus and the government's cynical amendments to try to prevent permanent settlement of boat people seeking asylum on our shores. This whole proposal to ban people seeking asylum for their entire lives from visiting Australia makes me think of a quote from Martin Luther King, in that it would be 'adding a deeper darkness into a night already devoid of stars'. He went on to say:

Darkness cannot drive out of darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

This government wants Australians to be hateful, heartless and cruel. It wants us to be afraid. It wants us to be scared of the 'other'. It wants us to somehow turn a blind eye to the very expensive torture that is happening in our name just off our shores, funded by our taxpayer dollars—$3 billion a year out of our budget. That is what this government spends on locking up women, men and children who have fled circumstances that many of us will never have to face simply because they want their families safe and they want to be able to live their lives and contribute to society in a way where they are not threatened with death, torture or persecution. They simply want to be able to have a safe life and contribute. This government wants us to be afraid of those people. It tells us that we need to lock them up, make sure that nobody whistle blows and tells us what is happening in those detention centres and allow them to be subject to abuse, even sexual abuse, including even children, and that somehow that will make us safer.

I do not think anybody buys that. The reason I say that is that there have been some very heartening examples recently in Queensland which I want to share with the chamber where people have stood up to that cruel rhetoric that is sheer nonsense and have said: 'No. That is not who we are. We are welcoming. We are strong. We are stronger in our diversity, and we are safer when we are kind to people than when we demonise them.' The example I am thinking of and have spoken on in this chamber before is the staff and workers at the Lady Cilento Children's Hospital. When Baby Asha came into their care from Nauru, they nursed her and her mother back to health. They then refused to release Baby Asha back into the arms of the government that would have deported her back to Nauru. They kept her in the care of the hospital until such time as the government agreed not to deport that child. They stared down the fear and the demonising that this government wants us all to accept. They stared that down and they won. On that day—as on other days, but on that day in particular—I was so proud to be a Queenslander and I was so proud of those people for taking a stand for all of us and letting the government know that we can be stronger and kinder and safer if we simply do not demonise other human beings who are coming to our shores seeking refuge.

We had a great win that day, and perhaps there was some cause for hope. Sadly, that cause for hope has been dashed because this government has found a new low. I did not think it was possible that we could sink to further lows in this debate and this country's treatment of people seeking asylum, but this government has managed it. Whether or not they are pandering to the racism and bigotry of the new One Nation party in this place or whether they have always been as cruel and heartless as this, they have now found a new low in that they want to deprive people, some of whom have already been settled here in Australia, of ever staying here permanently, or even of ever visiting.

The sheer nonsense in that approach is just ridiculous. What is particularly important now is that we do not see bipartisan support for this new low. Sadly, we have seen bipartisan support for offshore detention. We have seen the boats turned back—the deaths are still happening, just not in our waters. We have seen $3 billion every year spent on holding people in prisonlike conditions where they are tortured and abused. We cannot see bipartisan support for this new low.

I would urge the Labor Party not just to allow people to come as tourists in the future—yes, of course, it is the very least they should support—but to block this proposal by the government for a ban on permanent resettlement of refugees and asylum seekers who have spent time on Manus or Nauru. If we do not see that commitment from the Labor Party then it will truly be a black day in this country's history, and it will be a day that does not reflect the warm hearts of so many Australians, and Queenslanders in particular, who want a different approach that actually welcomes and strengthens our community.

Linda Reynolds (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak in relation to this matter of public importance. There are no easy solutions in dealing with the scourge of people smuggling, and no-one in this place has a monopoly on compassion. I believe that the most compassionate—indeed the only—option is to put and keep people smugglers out of business and to worry not about future tourists in 30 years but about the 14,000 people waiting to our north who want to come here by boat, to stop them from drowning. That to me is by far and away the most compassionate course of action, preventing deaths now and not worrying about tourists in 20, 30 or 40 years time.

Often in this place we do not give enough consideration to the real-world implications of the words we use in this chamber. Those opposite often talk about the impacts of the words that others use, but very rarely do they stop to think about the implication of their own words on others that serve our nation, including the words that they have uttered in this chamber today and the wording of this motion itself.

So I want to start off by paying tribute to and acknowledging the work of our thousands of men and women who protect our borders, whether they be public servants or whether they be men and women in border protection or defence uniforms. Their service in protecting us all is crucial and invaluable, yet they are often subject to unkind, hateful and demoralising vilification by those opposite. Rarely do those opposite stop to consider the impact that their words have on the people who serve our nation.

But it is not only the words of those opposite but also their policies. If you put people smugglers back in business, the 14,000 waiting in Indonesia will start to board boats again—and some will die of horrific deaths. We must consider not only the impact of those who lose their lives and those who survive and are permanently traumatised but the impact on our personnel who have to deal with the dead bodies and with the traumatised survivors? I do not think any of you there have had to fish out of the water the dead body of someone who has drowned making that trip.

Let me share with you the personal perspectives of those who have to pick up the mess of the policies of those opposite. Mr Pezzullo, the Secretary of the Department of Immigration and Border Protection, shared with us at estimates last month some of the implications of the loss of control of our borders on his men and women. He said this:

The immediate crisis … which involved, regrettably, an almost daily encounter with death, has passed into some historical memory, particularly for those officers of the then Customs and Border Protection Service and the Royal Australian Navy who variously had to attend some of these very gruesome scenes … there is ongoing trauma and post-traumatic stress associated with those events …

He also said:

Let me give voice to those members of my staff … They do not get to speak to you. But let me convey their sentiment. They get on with their job. They hear the claims. Some of them find those claims so traumatic that they ask to be reassigned to other roles. The majority carry on with great resilience and they go about their work with great dignity.

That is despite the often-proved unsubstantiated allegations of torture and waterboarding that our men and women are supposed to have committed, which they clearly did not. Mr Pezzullo also said:

… we reject utterly any suggestion that we are involved in organised and systemic torture, abuse, the running of concentration camps, the running of Nazi-like programs. They are rejected utterly. They get repeated all the time—

By those opposite—

sometimes by way of references to other reports. And all of those accusations and aspersions are rejected utterly.

He said that there have been reports that both he and the Commissioner of Border Force have had to deal with where part of the internal impact on their own staff translates to their families and their children at schools. Bullying comments made on Facebook postings are sometimes of a very personal and direct nature. This is as a direct result of the vilification of their staff—their men and women—by those opposite, including what we have just heard in this chamber today.

The Acting Commissioner of Australian Border Force also shared his thoughts on the consequences for his men and women in uniform:

… the men and women of the Australian Border Force, including the public servants and the officers, bring with them to work Australian values. That was a direct reference to the issue you raise. We do not recruit people on the basis of Nazism, fascism or anything else. We recruit people on the basis of their adherence to good values, integrity. They are incredibly committed. They do a very difficult job. But the mission—

That is, of serving all Australians—

is under their skin. But, yes, when you hear comments like that, of course it hurts people. But I can assure you I am very proud of our people.

Not often do we hear that or bother to talk about it in this place. Senator McKim heard those words from the acting commissioner and the secretary. I hope those opposite have had an opportunity to reflect on the power of their own words to hurt, particularly now that we have this highly inflammatory matter of public importance on the Notice Paper. Our men and women will see this. They will read this. Their children and their families will read and see this, and believe that their parents are evil. Their friends at school will continue to bully and taunt them that their parents are evil. Shame on you. (Time expired)

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is always interesting to follow on from those opposite when it comes to bashing refugees. Just when you thought this government could not lurch any further to the right, they go and smash it out of the park. Whenever the polls get worse for the Turnbull government, what does Mr Turnbull do? He goes to border protection or national security. That is what he does each and every time. Hold onto your hats, because Mr Turnbull is again willing to compromise on his principles. In fact, I should correct myself. I do not think Mr Turnbull has any principles anymore. 'Whatever it takes' is Mr Turnbull's new mantra. Quite frankly, it is a very sad day when the Prime Minister of this country is willing to go this far.

Let me be clear regarding this important issue from the outset: Labor has made clear our commitment to offshore processing and regional resettlement, combined with the policy of turning back boats to ensure people smugglers are denied their trade in exploiting vulnerable people. We have also made clear our view that we have a special obligation to ensure those most vulnerable people are not subjected to any further harm or violence. Labor will never put people smugglers back in business. Despite what those people on that side say, I will make it very clear: Labor will never put people smugglers back into business.

The government has had three years to secure durable and credible third-country resettlement options for refugees living in Australian funded offshore detention centres on Manus Island and Nauru, but they have failed to announce any arrangements and are desperate to distract from that fact. That is what was behind this thought bubble that Malcolm Turnbull pulled out of the air last Sunday. Labor is one with the government when it comes to protecting our borders and shutting down the people-smuggling trade; that is very clear. But let us consider this life ban. It is ridiculous, for example, to suggest that a former genuine refugee who becomes a citizen in either the US or Canada will be banned for a lifetime from entering Australia under tourism or business visas in the next 20, 30 or 40 years time. It is absurd and it just reflects the desperation of this Prime Minister.

This legislation is designed for one purpose only, and that is to distract from Dutton's and Turnbull's complete failure to secure permanent third-country resettlement arrangements and get people out of Nauru. It is this government's failure, and that was the motivation behind this absurd policy bubble that was grabbed out of the air. This is government is so desperate. It has a desperate Prime Minister leading it, trying to shift the focus from his government that is dysfunctional and in complete chaos. This government fails to recognise the proud history of migration to this country. Refugees have gone on to achieve amazing things in their adopted country—people like Frank Lowy or those doctors that work at the Launceston General Hospital or at the Royal Hobart Hospital. Right around this country refugees who have come to this country have contributed greatly to the country that we are today, and we should be proud of that. We have a proud history to defend. But this government is responsible for this and says it is okay because ministerial discretion could apply in certain visa circumstances.

Let us be clear: it would be up to the minister of the day to use his or her discretion to allow a former refugee who has made an outstanding contribution to wherever they have been relocated. If they wanted to come out here to a conference as a visiting doctor, they would not be able to unless they got ministerial approval. This is such ad hoc, absurd, dysfunctional rhetoric from this government that goes from one crisis to another. They have no plan. They have no vision. As I said in my speech yesterday, this is a Prime Minister who had a plan to become Prime Minister. Yes, he succeeded in becoming the Prime Minister, but he will go down in history as one of the worst Prime Ministers this country has ever seen.

We cannot possibly trust Mr Dutton to make decisions in the national interest. Heaven forbid! To think that some people are counting numbers for him to take over from Malcolm Turnbull is quite absurd. It is nearly as bad as this policy and this legislation that they want to put in. This is a minister who is completely incompetent. Frankly, I do not know how he has been able to retain the confidence of the Prime Minister. But I really do know how he has been able to manage that: he needs his numbers to keep his job.

There are many problems with an indefinite ban on refugees. For example, as I said, it could be a doctor coming out to a medical conference. It could be an elite athlete who wants to come out to compete at the Commonwealth Games. But, no, that may not necessarily happen. We are supposed to trust this government or a future government, whoever that may be, to allow that in the future.

If former refugees already have family who have been able to migrate and live in this country, they would not even be able to visit their family. So firstly, according to this legislation, a surgeon or a doctor visiting to attend a medical conference would not be able to re-enter or come to Australia. If you are an elite athlete who happens to be a refugee currently on Manus Island and you relocate to Canada, the US or anywhere else, you would not be able to come to this country. If you have family already living here, you would not be able to come to this country. This is absurd.

We know that whenever this government is in trouble—as it appears to be every single day with its chaos and with the shambolic, dysfunctional government that it has proven to be—then what does it do? Either it goes for border protection as an issue or it goes to refugees. What it has done here is quite ludicrous.

Rather than playing petty politics, muddying the waters about rumoured third-country deals and doing One Nation's bidding, the government should be focusing on securing third-country resettlement options. This government should be focused on getting refugees off Manus Island and Nauru. People have been held in indefinite detention for too long because this government has failed to secure viable alternative countries to resettle these refugees in.

As part of the public discussion this week, the government have repeatedly claimed that this legislation is needed to secure third-country resettlement options. But they have provided no credible evidence that any of these agreements are pending. We are not even sure—one minister says one thing and the Prime Minister says something else. Then you have another minister with a completely different view on what this legislation is going to be. But when this policy was first released by the desperate Prime Minister of this country—the Liberal Prime Minister of this country—not only was I shocked, and my family, but so were my neighbours. I have been inundated in my office with emails and phone calls from people who say that this is just a bridge too far. That is what I came out with on the Sunday when this was announced. I thought I was hearing things. How could a desperate government be so foolish as to want to take this step—a bridge too far?

Now, I have supported the Labor Party's decision to back the government when it comes to turning back the boats. I understand that, and we certainly do not want people smugglers back in business. But colleagues in this chamber and, I know, the people in my community—Tasmanians—are right behind me when I say that this is a bridge too far. Enough is enough.

I know that every senator in this place and, I am sure, every House of Representatives member in the other place, would be inundated with phone calls and emails as well. But I know that—

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Only from GetUp!

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, I can always rely on Senator Macdonald to come in and start blustering. What he will do is start rewriting history, as he normally does. And he is very good at personal insults, but the facts speak for themselves: we have a very strong history of supporting refugees in this country. They make a valuable contribution. We should not condemn those refugees to a lifetime ban simply because this government is so incompetent.

They go from one disaster to the other. Malcolm Turnbull picks one bubble out after another, and what we need to do is just burst those bubbles once and for all.

Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Williams, a point of order?

John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is quite common for Senator Polley to refer to those in the other place not by their correct titles but just by their Christian names and surnames. I ask you to remind her to refer to those in the other place with respect—and to remember that, because I am sick of taking points of order on this very issue with Senator Polley.

Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Williams. Senator Polley, your time is up!

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am not quite sure which planet Senator Polley lives on or comes from, but clearly it is not the same planet as most other Australians. Whilst I am disappointed that the Labor Party has breached the bipartisan nature of our border security today, I guess that from a political point of view it probably suits us well, because most Australians totally and strongly support the government's position and actions to stop the uncontrolled entry across our borders by many people who are not refugees but simply people expecting and wanting a better economic life.

I will go through a few statistics just to put this argument in perspective. Under the Howard government, the influx of refugees across our borders had stopped and the number of people in detention, including children, was very low. In fact, I think there were no children in detention at the end of the Howard government. The Labor government came along and opened the borders up to everybody and anybody. Whether you were a refugee or just someone who wanted a better life, it was: 'Come to Australia.' They were welcomed by the Labor Party. They probably signed a lot of them up in their branches when they arrived. What I can never understand about the Labor Party and the Greens is that, because Australia's very generous refugee intake is a fixed number, every time someone jumped the queue it meant that genuine refugees living in squalid refugee camps right around the world had to wait another year for their chance to get to the promised land. The Labor Party seemed to be keen to help those very wealthy people who could afford the airfare from wherever they came from to Malaysia and Indonesia. A husband, wife and several children were all paying for airfares. When these people got there they then paid the people smugglers $15,000 a head. These are not poor refugees. These are not the sort of people waiting in the squalid camps that the UNHCR has to run around the world. These people were jumping the queue. And not only were they jumping the queue; but many of them were putting their own lives at risk. We were aware of the fact that the 1,200-odd bodies recovered were of those who drowned on the way here. We do not know how many other thousands of people drowned in attempting to illegally get across Australia's borders.

Australia has nothing to be ashamed of as far as refugees are concerned, and certainly the coalition government has a very proud record. For years, we have taken approximately 13,000 to 14,000 genuine refugees—people who follow the rules, who apply to the UNHCR to come to Australia. We have houses for them. We have jobs for them. We plan our social security because we know they are coming. Just recently, the coalition government increased that number—I do not have the exact number on me—to about 17,000 to 18,000. In addition to that—

Senator Polley interjecting—

and we heard Senator Polley with her old 'desperate PM', 'desperate government'; she keeps saying it. Senator Polley, just because you are saying it does not make it true. There is no desperation in the government. The coalition government actually increased the intake of genuine refugees by an additional 12,000 people—something the Labor Party never did. These people are genuine refugees, who actually do the right thing and take their turn. For some reason, the Labor Party and the Greens seem to fancy the wealthy people who can fly from their country of origin to Malaysia or Indonesia and pay people smugglers $15,000.

The whole Manus and Nauru issue has been debated to death. We have had about four, five or six Senate committees inquiring into it. We get the same old people making the same old submissions, trying to get their mates into the country—out of the queue, out of the system. The Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee, which is holding yet another inquiry into this issue, recently had the gall to approach the President about the committee visiting Manus and Nauru. I do not know what the President has done, whether he has dealt with the matter or not. I know that Senator Reynolds and I, two government members of the committee, were totally opposed to it. Do you realise, Mr Acting Deputy President, that it would take, according to my investigation, something like $40,000 and plus, plus, plus—because that is just for airfares alone—to get the committee up to those places. I am sure the taxpayers of Australia would rather their taxpayer dollars be spent on things other than having this committee doing a jaunt up to Nauru and Manus. And for what? Any evidence that is legally useful in Senate committees can be got from sitting in a committee room here in Australia. I think this just demonstrates the weird approach the Greens and the Labor Party have to this whole situation. This new legislation is not the subject of this debate—but Senator Polley talked of nothing else. It will come before the parliament and it is destined to say to people: 'Don't bother leaving your homeland. If you are a genuine refugee do it via the appropriate places, but if you are not a genuine refugee do not bother. Apply via the normal migration situation and entry level.'

Most of these people are not refugees. They are wealthy people who want a better life—and I do not blame them for that. But it just makes the real situation intolerable. Genuine refugees wait longer in squalid camps thanks to the Labor Party— (Time expired)