David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last week was world Refugee Week. During the week, I had the good fortune of meeting with multicultural groups from across the country. The message I kept hearing was very, very similar. They feel utterly betrayed by the Albanese Labor government. Maybe Labor, which has been in denial about the extent to which it's burnt its connections with multicultural Australia, even through the political spin that Labor has been putting, has slightly heard that message, because this week it has not brought on Labor's Trumpian travel ban and refugee bill. They have not brought it onto the floor of this chamber, thank goodness.

That's a bill that's designed to break connections between diaspora communities here and their communities back home in their countries of origin. Entire countries are proposed to be banned from accessing Australia, separating families, loved ones, communities, business links and student links. Also, it proposes to send people to jail for a minimum of one year if they don't cooperate with the government on their own deportation. I can't tell you how angry multicultural Australia is with this most recent betrayal from the Albanese Labor government. What is extraordinary is that Labor, with all of the resources and powers of the Commonwealth government, all the arms it can twist and all the financial levers it has, could not get a single organisation in the entire country to put in a submission to back its bill. It is a right stinker. Maybe, just maybe, Labor is hearing that.

I want to thank the communities in particular that I met down in Melbourne, the Hazara, Tamil, Iranian, Kurdish, Sikh, Palestinian and Bangladeshi communities. For all of them and the refugees and communities they support, let's win this and let's get this miserable government to finally kill the bill.