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 Minister for Employment (Senator.Cash) to a question without notice asked by Senator McKim today relating to settlement of a legal case concerning the Manus Island immigration detention centre.

Today we found out that Minister for Immigration and Border Protection Peter Dutton has made a choice to settle a class action brought against Australia and some contractors in the Manus Island detention centre based on illegal detention and failure of duty of care and that Mr Dutton has made a choice to settle for about $90 million. I believe this is the biggest human rights settlement in Australia's history. It is also the biggest admission of responsibility in Australian human rights history, because today Minister Dutton has accepted that he, Prime Minister Turnbull and, before them, Mr Morrison when he was minister for immigration and, before him, the Australian Labor Party, who established the detention centre on Manus Island and who supported and continue to support the policy of indefinite detention on both Manus Island and Nauru are responsible for the illegality of offshore detention and for the massive harm that offshore detention causes to our fellow human beings.

The men that Peter Dutton is detaining on Manus Island have suffered immensely and far too much during their years of illegal incarceration. They have been robbed of their future. They have been denied their freedoms. They have had their families broken and ripped in two. People have died, including one—Reza Barati—who was murdered while in Australia's care on Manus Island. We have seen dozens of serious injuries. We have seen hundreds of men suffering physical and psychological torment because of the Labor and Liberal parties' choice to detain them on Manus Island. There have been riots, and only weeks ago the Manus Island Detention Centre came under sustained automatic weapon fire by drunk members of the Papua New Guinea navy.

I have been to Manus Island and I have met many of the people who today have been awarded damages because Mr Dutton has confirmed that he is responsible for what happened to them. I have shared cups of tea with them. I have broken bread with many of them. When I spoke to them, they said to me that they do not really care about the money; they just want a safe place. They want to be reunited with their family members who are in Australia. They want a place they can call home where they do not have to worry about having machine guns fired at them and where they do not have to worry about being robbed and beaten when they walk down the street. They just want a place to call home—a safe place where they can start to rebuild their lives.

Mr Dutton's decision to settle this class action, as I said, is an acknowledgement of his responsibility for the conditions and the harm that they have suffered. It is an acknowledgement that his attempt to wash his hands of responsibility is not only dishonest but a fiction that would not have stood up in a court of law. But Minister Dutton did not settle this because he had a pang of conscience. I can assure Australia of that.

And he did not settle it because he wants to do the right thing; he settled the case because he wants to keep the horrors of what has happened to these men on Manus Island hidden and secret from the Australian people. No amount of money can compensate these men for the harm that Mr Dutton has done. If he is serious about looking after them, he has to ensure that not only the camp on Manus Island but the camp on Nauru as well is closed. Every man, woman and child that Australia is responsible for on Manus Island and Nauru needs to be brought here to Australia so we can look after them properly and so they can make a positive contribution to our society.

Question agreed to.