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

On behalf of the Chair of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, I present the following reports: Annual report 2014-15, Annual report 2015-16 and Report 13 of 2017: Human rights scrutiny report.

Ordered that the reports be printed.

I seek leave to have the tabling statements incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The statements read as follows—

PARLIAMENTARY JOINT COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RIGHTS - SENATE TABLING STATEMENT - WEDNESDAY, 6 DECEMBER 2017

I rise to speak to the tabling of one Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights' scrutiny report and two annual reports.

The committee examines bills and legislative instruments for compatibility with Australia's obligations under international human rights law. In doing so, the committee aims to enhance understanding of, and respect for, human rights in Australia and ensure that human rights issues are appropriately considered in legislative and policy development.

Members of scrutiny committees, including this committee, may, and often do, have different views in relation to the policy merits of legislation. The report does not assess the broader merits or policy objectives of particular measures but rather seeks to provide parliament with a credible technical examination of the human rights implications of legislation. Committee members performing this scrutiny function are not bound by the contents or conclusions of scrutiny committee reports.

Scrutiny Report 13 contains assessments of legislative instruments received between 13 October and 2 November, as well as bills and instruments previously deferred. The committee is seeking further information in relation to three bills and instruments, and has provided an 'advice only' assessment of the Marriage Amendment (Definition and Religious Freedoms) Bill 2017, on which debate commenced in the other place this week.

The report also contains the committee's concluded examination of two bills:

Annual Reports 2014-15 and 2015-16

I also speak to the tabling of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights' Annual Reports for 2014-15 and 2015-16. These reports provide information about the work of the committee during the respective reporting periods, including the major themes and scrutiny issues arising from the legislation examined by the committee.

In the 2014-15 financial year, the committee tabled 16 scrutiny reports, assessing a total of 240 bills and Acts and 1,958 legislative instruments. Of the bills considered in this period, the majority — 161 — were assessed as either promoting human rights, permissibly limiting human rights or not engaging human rights.

In the 2015-16 financial year, the committee tabled 14 scrutiny reports, examining 192 bills and Acts and 1,948 legislative instruments. The committee also tabled one inquiry report during the period — the 2016 Review of Stronger Futures measures which contained seven recommendations aimed at improving the human rights compatibility of the legislation considered as part of the inquiry.

I encourage my fellow Senators and others to examine the committee's annual reports to better inform their consideration of the committee's work during the relevant periods.

End of year statement

Finally, I would like to provide an end of year snapshot of the committee's significant work since the 45th Parliament commenced in August 2016.

The committee has tabled 17 scrutiny reports in the 45th Parliament thus far, including 13 this year. The committee also tabled its Freedom of Speech in Australia inquiry report on 28 February 2017.

In this period, the committee examined a considerable volume of legislation – 405 bills and 2,942 instruments. Of these, 309 bills and 2,875 instruments were assessed as either promoting human rights, permissibly limiting human rights or not engaging human rights.

The committee requested further information from the relevant legislation proponent in relation to 89 bills and instruments. In a number of cases, following correspondence with the legislation proponent and the provision of further information, the committee was able to conclude that the legislation in question was likely to be compatible with human rights.

With these comments, I commend the committee's Report 13 of 2017; Annual Report 2014-15; and Annual Report 2015-16 to the Senate.

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

I move:

That the Senate take note of the annual reports of the committee.

Over the period covered by these annual reports we've seen a massive expansion in the powers of the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, Mr Dutton, as he continues to oversee the oppressive regimes of offshore detention on Manus Island and Nauru—and these are unconscionable regimes. We can see the banality of these regimes in some of the disgraceful leaking of so-called information against Mr Abdul Aziz Adam. Aziz is a genuine refugee who has been detained for 4½ years on Manus Island. He is a man who has suffered immeasurably, as have many, many hundreds of other detainees on Manus Island and Nauru, because of the actions of Mr Dutton and his Liberal and Labor predecessors.

Aziz had the audacity to ask a question on the ABC's Q&A earlier this week, and, for having had the audacity to publicly ask why he has not been given the protection that Australia legally owes him, in revenge, the office of the immigration minister leaked so-called information about Aziz to the Australian. Unfortunately, the article was based on false premises and false information leaked by the minister's office. Firstly, the article described Aziz as an asylum seeker. That is not correct. He's actually a refugee and has been found to be a refugee by the PNG government. Secondly, and more seriously, it claimed that Aziz has not applied for US resettlement. This is false. He has applied for resettlement to the US. The article also claimed, on the basis of information provided from Mr Dutton's office, that Aziz has been involved in a specific number of protests in the Manus Island detention centre. I have no doubt that's true. In fact, I've been involved, sitting next to Aziz, in a protest myself inside the Manus Island detention centre.

What this shows is that Mr Dutton's spooks are watching every move that these men make, because they still have absolute control over what is going on on Manus Island and Nauru. They are counting how many protests refugees go to, they are counting what actions refugees take at those protests and they are documenting every action that the refugees take. I say to Mr Dutton: instead of spying on these innocent people and maliciously leaking against them to your favourite pamphlet—the unofficial sponsor of the Cronulla riots in this country, The Australian newspaper—how about treating these people like the human beings that they are; respecting the legal rights that they have, which we have signed up under international law to abide by; and resettling them and bringing them to freedom and safety, which we should have done years ago?

As we stand here today, the cruelty of this government has reached ever higher levels because Mr Dutton is, as we stand here, forcibly separating a man from his family and putting this man—and I spoke about this in the adjournment debate last night; Arash is a refugee on Nauru—in a position that none of us in this chamber would ever want to be in. I hope that none of us are ever in this position where we're forced to choose between a shot at freedom and the chance to hold our baby daughter in our arms for the very first time. That is the situation that this government is placing Arash in. There are plenty of Liberal and National senators in this place who pontificate and lecture the rest of the country about how much they care about family values—what rot. If they cared about family values, they wouldn't be trying to smash up this family and deny this man a chance to hold his beautiful baby daughter in his arms for the very first time.

I say to those opposite: you don't care about his family, you don't care about his wife and you don't care about his daughter. You only care about your political game. That's all you care about. So don't come in here and start giving us lectures about how much you care about families. I do not believe you; I do not believe any one of you. If you cared about families, you wouldn't be doing this. You've covered up and you've played down reports of abuse, including the sexual abuse of children and the neglect of children. You've covered them up time after time after time.

James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Get off your soap box!

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

I don't care how much Senator McGrath wants to lose control of himself.

James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You're the one losing control.

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

Senator McGrath, I can't hear what Senator McKim is saying, so keep your interjections to a minimum.

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

They have covered up and played down allegations of child abuse, including child sexual abuse. They have ignored the pleas of doctors who've sought to properly care for people who've been broken under the orders of the Labor Party and the Liberal Party in this place. Both Labor and Liberal have the blood of innocent people on their hands because of the punitive, disgusting and disgraceful policies that they've put in place around offshore detention.

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

Senator McGrath, you have a point of order?

James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have a point of order. I would ask that he withdraw that we have blood on our hands.

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

Senator McKim, I would ask that you withdraw that statement.

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

I do not believe that it's unparliamentary, and I will not withdraw it.

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

Senator McGrath?

James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would ask—through you, Madam Acting Deputy President—that he does withdraw it, because it does reflect upon the Labor Party and the Liberal Party to say that we have blood on our hands. That is a direct reflection upon senators in this chamber.

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

Senator McKim, I would ask you to because it does reflect very poorly and I think it is very unparliamentary—that is, the accusations that are behind that on senators on both sides of this chamber. I would ask you withdraw those reflections or perhaps clarify them in a less pejorative way.

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

The simple fact is that they do have blood on their hands. People have died as a result of the policies of the Labor and Liberal parties, and I stand by that comment—

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

Senator Whish-Wilson, do you have a point of order?

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

I have a point of order. Could I suggest that you take away and reflect on the Hansard and make a decision based on that reflection?

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

I will, but I'll provide Senator McKim one further opportunity to perhaps clarify what he actually meant by that statement before I adopt Senator Whish-Wilson's suggestion.

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

I'm happy to clarify because I do respect the chair. By that comment, I'm saying they are directly responsible for the death of human beings. That's what I'm saying.

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

Senator Whish-Wilson, thank you. I will take that away and reflect on the Hansard and will get back through the President if required.

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

Thank you, Madam Acting Deputy President. The Labor and Liberal parties have shown their willingness to not only torture people—that is, to deliberately harm people in order to coerce outcomes out of another group of people entirely; they're basically acting like the old-style medieval cities that impaled corpses on the walls to try and dissuade other desperate people from seeking entry into those cities. That is exactly what they're doing with living human beings on Manus Island and Nauru: they are treating them in a way that they know will cause deliberate and significant harm, and they are doing it in order to dissuade other people from taking certain actions. I do not recognise my country when I talk about these matters.

The terrible tragedy of this situation is that most of this cruelty would be so much harder for the government to do if the Labor Party would actually show the slightest sign of standing up against it. I want to go on the record here and say that, in years to come, there will be a royal commission into the way we've treated these people on Manus Island and Nauru. Reparations will be made, apologies will be made and blame will be apportioned, and the blame will be apportioned to the Labor, Liberal and National parties in this place and to other senators in this place who've supported them in lock step every step of the way. When that day comes, I hope that the people that you have treated so appallingly on Manus Island and Nauru can take small solace from that. It will only be small because their lives will still have been damaged and some of them will still be dead because of what you have done to them. You will be held to account in the same way that, I hope, the Catholic Church will be held to account for what it's done. If you can't stand up and demand a stop to what, I believe, is early-onset fascism—reflected in the actions of the Labor and Liberal parties on Manus Island and Nauru and policy settings around that, and in the way that the minister currently responds to circumstances, such as Arash's where he is deliberately trying to use a denial of access to the US resettlement deal in order to coerce Arash's wife and baby daughter back to Nauru—then you are a party to that abuse. It is as simple as that. So let's actually stand together. Let's demand better from the government and let's demand better from the minister. If you don't, you will be remembered by history as collaborators to torture.

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

That presentation from a disgusting excuse for an Australian should be called out.

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

Senator Whish-Wilson, you have a point of order?

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

I have a point of order. It's totally unparliamentary to reflect on Senator McKim like that.

James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Considering what he said in his speech—

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

Senator McGrath, you are not helping.

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

Senator Macdonald has been here for long enough to know that that's totally unacceptable. I ask him to withdraw that.

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

I will ask Senator Macdonald to withdraw that. He might like to find a different turn of phrase.

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

I withdraw, Madam Deputy President, in deference to your ruling, unlike the Greens political party, which are full of hypocrisy. They have just demonstrated this with that point of order. It's okay for Senator McKim to accuse other senators in this chamber of 'blood on their hands', but, when I call him an 'excuse for an Australian', they immediately take a point of order. The hypocrisy knows no bounds.

If people are interested in this debate—and I suspect that, apart from the five of them sitting over that side, nobody is—the people who were genuinely responsible for deaths were the Labor Party and the Greens political party, who supported the Labor Party at the time when they were encouraging criminal people smugglers to bring people illegally into this country. These were not poor refugees. These were wealthy people who were paying a large sum of money to fly to Indonesia and then paying criminal people smugglers $15,000 per person to smuggle them illegally across to Australia. And this illegal activity was then, and is now, being supported by the Greens political party. I often wonder what sorts of kickbacks there may have been to the Greens political party from the people smugglers, or others, who were making a fortune out of this vile criminal activity.

We know there is one political party that does have blood on its hands, and that is the political party that supported the then government and caused the known deaths of some 1,200 people. We suspect that there were many thousands more, but there were known deaths of at least 1,200 men, women and children, which never raised a concern from the Greens political party. They just accepted that, because their mates in the Labor Party were in government. They were encouraging them. The Greens were keeping them in power. We know there were 1,200 deaths.

Mr Acting Deputy President, I have the honour of chairing the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee but the misfortune to have to put up with the sorts of lies you have heard in this chamber just recently from another senator, the absolute and abject mistruths about what is happening on Manus and Nauru. These were arrangements—I might remind anyone who is interested—that were put in place by the former Labor government, with the support of the coalition, because it was really reinstating the policies that the Howard government had put in place over a period of time that had stopped the flow of illegal immigrants into Australia. The Howard government had done that. The Labor Party came to power, opened up the floodgates, caused the deaths of at least 1,200 people and had over 2,000 children in detention—and you never heard a whimper from the Greens, because it was their mates in the Labor Party who did it.

The government changed, and what happened? We stopped the deaths at sea. No longer were people losing their lives because of the actions of the Greens political party and the previous Labor Party government. But the Labor Party government put these people into Manus and Nauru, and the Greens political party supported it at the time, because their mates in the Labor Party were the ones doing it. Fortunately Mr Rudd, in his second term as Prime Minister, started the process of stopping the boats. It's a process that the coalition government has continued. I'm proud to say it has been literally years now since we've had any illegal immigrants into Australia or any deaths at sea. The Greens are so concerned about deaths, but they never whimpered about the 1,200 people who we know were killed as a result of these policies. Because I'm chair of the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee, this argument comes up all the time, first of all by Senator Hanson—she would always burst into tears at the appropriate time—

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Macdonald, I have not been in your committee, but have you got the right senator? I can feel the vibe coming from Senator Hanson!

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

I meant Senator Hanson-Young, I'm sorry. My apologies, Senator Hanson. Should I ever equate with you Senator Hanson-Young deliberately, I will cut my wrists. I would never do that; I would never insult you in that way. But we first of all had Senator Hanson-Young bursting into tears at the appropriate time in every speech she made, but at least she was better than their current spokesman, Senator McKim, who barely can be represented as an Australian. He says he does not recognise his country when we're talking about this. I say to Senator McKim: your country would not want to recognise you, and perhaps you should go back to the place of your birth.

We have been through this time and time again. Everything we have heard from Senator McKim is a fabrication. This accusation of torture might excite a few of the GetUp! people and a few of the Greens political party's few members, but most Australians know that is a positive and deliberate lie. There is no torture there. In fact, if we talk just for a moment about Manus, I happened to be up in PNG and speaking to the local member for Manus in the PNG parliament. It is a sovereign country, and I understand what's happening there. This particular centre was shut down on the orders of the PNG supreme court, which the Greens political party applauded. They applauded the fact that the PNG supreme court had ordered this centre to be shut down.

It was shut down and three alternative places of accommodation were built. I tell you, it was better accommodation than most Australians living outside of the capital cities have. It had all the food, all the clothing, all the support and all the air-conditioning as the other centres on Manus. Those in that centre, which the supreme court said must be shut down, were free to go to any of these other centres where they would be properly cared for, yet Senator McKim calls this torture.

On Nauru, again, these are not people who were invited to Australia. They're not poor refugees. They are wealthy people trying to get into the promised land, the land promised by the people smugglers, which continues to be promised by a group of lawyers and the Greens political party in Australia. Keep on encouraging these people and giving them false hope that they will again one day be able to come illegally into Australia.

Australia has a great reputation for accepting genuine refugees. In fact, per capita, I think Australia is No. 2 or No. 3 in the world in generosity for accepting genuine refugees into this country, who we look after, as we should. Australia has nothing to be ashamed of when it comes to our concern for and helping of genuine refugees. These people in Nauru and Manus can leave at any time they like. Those who have been determined by the UNHCR to be genuine refugees can go to the United States or other countries or they can return home. We have examples of certain refugees who claim they would be murdered if they went home. We have examples, not in Manus or Nauru but in Australia, of them going back on holidays to the country that they claim they can't return to because they'll be put to death. Now, Madam Acting Deputy President, this debate—

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Macdonald, I know you're passionate in your defence, but Madam Acting Deputy President left.

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

Oh, sorry.

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I know I've been accused of a few things lately, but I'm still a bloke!

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

I'm sorry, Mr Acting Deputy President. As you know, that is a slip of the tongue. I do get very passionate when I hear the lies told about our country, our officials and our public dollars when you hear the Greens political party. (Time expired)

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

I seek leave to continue my remarks on this report later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.