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

I move:

That the provisions of the Migration Amendment (Prohibiting Items in Immigration Detention Facilities) Bill 2024 be referred to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 16 April 2025.

With this motion, the Greens are calling for this bill to be referred to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee because it must be scrutinised. This is one of three bills where Labor joined up with the coalition at the end of last year, literally in the dying hours of parliament just before Christmas. It's never been considered by a committee. They guillotined the bill without debate and just rammed it through as part of Labor's attack on refugees, migrants and multicultural Australia. Now, it is dreadfully unfortunate that this bill has passed as part of that package of three bills, with some of the most extreme changes we have seen in migration law since the abolition of the White Australia policy. As that happened, as it played out in the chamber last year, we saw the coalition openly bragging in this chamber, out in the media, about how they were 'running the immigration system for the government'. It was Labor running to whatever nasty, intolerant tune the coalition played on migration, and this bill was perhaps one of the worst aspects of it.

This bill proposed to actually allow the minister to ban any item in any immigration detention centre. It could be phones—a phone-ban bill. It could be essential medication. It could be literally anything, but it's really a mobile phone ban that's at the core of this. It would let the minister ban mobile phones in detention centres. It would allow those operating detention centres to put dogs into people's living quarters without a warrant to do searches.

And what is extraordinary about this is that, when in opposition, Labor voted down the coalition twice on this. In 2020, then minister Dutton brought forward almost this exact same bill, proposing phone bans in immigration detention centres, proposing these kinds of search powers, and then Labor—because maybe it had more of a spine in 2020—acknowledged the human rights abuses, acknowledged that people are in immigration detention centres not because they've committed a crime but because of their visa status, and said it would be cruel and inhuman to prevent people in detention centres from having access to a phone so they could talk to their lawyer, talk to their family and keep in touch with their community.

Back in 2020, Labor recognised that people in these immigration detention centres weren't criminals; they were there because of their visa status. Back in 2020, Labor listened to human rights groups who said that having mobile phones, which can take photos and videos in immigration detention centres that are run by global multinational bottom feeders like Serco, is actually a really important accountability measure. They can take videos of the abusive behaviour of corporations like Serco—for example, when Serco decided to turn fire extinguishers on people in an immigration detention centre as their form of so-called crowd control, because they didn't like people pushing back on unfair practices. Labor in 2020 realised that was important, but Labor in 2024 and now in 2025 under the current Prime Minister thinks that none of these human rights should exist. Far from opposing these laws, they joined together with the coalition to ram them through without even a debate or any scrutiny.

That's why we say that this bill should go and be referred to the committee, because we need that independent scrutiny. We need the independent scrutiny from organisations like the ASRC. When a similar bill from the coalition actually came before an inquiry in the Senate, they pointed out that none of these search powers were required because the minister and those in control of detention centres could already search if they had reasonable suspicion. They had the search powers if needed, but they couldn't just put the dogs in whenever they chose.

We should be hearing from groups like the Australian Human Rights Commission, which pointed out in 2020 what an abuse this is of people's human rights and that people in these immigration detention centres who have not committed a crime should have a right to communicate with their community and their lawyer and need to have accountability measures. That's why this should go to an inquiry, and that's why I endorse the motion.

Andrew McLachlan (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the motion moved by Senator Shoebridge to refer a matter to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee be agreed to. Time flies! Your submissions were so seductive that I missed the 6.30 hard marker, so we'll have to defer the division until tomorrow morning.