Steph Hodgins-May (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you to my colleague and Australian Greens spokesperson for immigration Senator Shoebridge for your work on the Migration Amendment Bill and on this inquiry. Let's call out this legislation for what it is. It is punitive, unnecessarily cruel and a threat to multiculturalism in Australia. In the final hours of parliament in 2024, when we could have been working together to act on gambling reform, to pass nature laws or fix the housing crisis, Labor teamed up with Peter Dutton to push through draconian and cruel legislation designed purely to punish refugees, legislation that allows other countries to take up to 80,000 people currently in our community without any safeguards.

Under this law, refugees who went to offshore detention but who are now in Australia can be sent literally anywhere in the world without regard for their safety, without any guarantees they won't be deported back to the very countries from where they fled persecution. These people are lawfully here contributing to our community, paying taxes and doing their best to take care of their families during a cost-of-living crisis. They are our neighbours, they are our work colleagues and they are our friends. Now they fear for their lives and loved ones, not knowing when they will be ripped from their community. But this vile legislation is only one part of the brutal antimigrant and refugee package Prime Minister Albanese teamed up with Peter Dutton to pass last year.

Four years ago, the coalition government put forth a proposal to ban phones from people in migration centres. Four years ago, the public and Greens protested and advocated against this decision. And four years ago, Labor joined our cause. Labor recognised at that time this legislation was inhumane and unnecessarily cruel. They knew there was no cause for denying fundamental rights of communication to people trapped in the hell of mandatory detention, for people who came to Australia looking for safety. They recognised that this bill went against their values and their principles. Now, four years later, in government, Labor turned the exact same revolting proposal into law, stripping refugees and people seeking asylum in mandatory detention of their right to communicate, of their ability to contact their loved ones, to see their children's faces, connect with their home countries or to connect with their lawyers. Dutton and Albanese's anti refugee unholy trinity was completed with a final bill that included—

Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I didn't want to interrupt the flow of the senator's contribution but it would assist, I think, and be consistent with standing orders if people in the other place were referred to by their proper names or titles.

Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm sure Senator Hodgins-May understands that.

Steph Hodgins-May (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Opposition leader, Mr Dutton, and Prime Minister Albanese's anti refugee unholy trinity was completed with a final bill that included a Trump style travel ban that allows the government to prevent anyone from certain countries coming to Australia. The government did not even have the decency to tell the public who they were going to ban, but we suspect this will target countries like Iran and Sudan, placing permanent barriers between diaspora communities and their extended families and communities. This is what Labor are capable of when they team up with the coalition, ramming through laws that betray the very multicultural communities that voted them into power.

Refugee and migrant communities were promised a different kind of government and leadership, one that protected social cohesion, quashed vilification and defended our proud multicultural Australia. Those dreams now lay in tatters.

Prime Minister Albanese, what a disappointment you've turned out to be. What happened to your election promise to leave no-one behind, to hold no-one back? What happened to the light on the hill? It's quite clear that Labor and the Prime Minister do not care. They don't care to keep their election promise nor to protect human rights and refugees. To multicultural Australians—to anyone who came here as a refugee, to anyone who is part of a diaspora community: the Greens see you. We hear you, and we will continue to fight for you in this place. We'll continue to call out the major parties for their hypocrisy and disregard of human rights. We'll continue to fight any legislation that unnecessarily persecutes refugees, migrants or people seeking asylum.

The election around the corner is a real opportunity to see change. We can elect more Greens into parliament and deliver meaningful reforms that protect refugees and human rights, reforms that celebrate diversity and put people over division. Australians are sick of voting for the two same parties and getting the same results. This election is their chance to draw a line in the sand and say: 'Enough of the fearmongering and dog whistling by the two major parties in this country. Let's embrace multiculturalism and respect the right of law and human rights.' I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.