Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

My final comment is that it is true that HREOC and UNHCR do not have that power. But HREOC, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, established by an act of this parliament, clearly has a role to provide advice on how Australia meets or otherwise its obligations under international conventions, including ones that touch on stateless people. It deals with this stuff every day in much greater detail than the parliament and, I would suggest, on a day-to-day basis, almost anybody in the department or government as well. The UNHCR, on an international scale, does the same.

One of the reasons these sorts of reviews are valuable is that we are not forced to rely on bland assertions from government that they meet all our obligations. I have heard that repeatedly from representatives of the minister for immigration in this chamber—or indeed from the minister for immigration herself when that was the case—for a number of years now. They blandly assert that Australia meets our international obligations in every way, even in the face of overwhelming, comprehensive, undoubted, incontestable evidence such that anybody with even the remotest comprehension of the English language would know that we are flagrantly breaching our obligations. Nations have a right to do that but the least we should do is admit it.

The government should not be defensive about this; I am not accusing them of doing it. I am suggesting it is an area to look at. My belief is that the intent of the Senate committee’s recommendation was not in any way to suggest the government were failing in this area—unlike Senate committee recommendations in other areas where they quite clearly believe the government have failed to meet their international obligations on refugees and other matters. The intent was to enable a more thorough examination because it is not really clear whether or not we adequately meet our obligations.

The obligations to stateless people and how you best meet those obligations is not an easy area. None of this is easy, as I said earlier, but this is a particularly difficult area. It is not even always clear as to how stateless people are defined, frankly. Reaching agreement as to whether or not someone is stateless is not always easy. It is an area that could do with further work. For once it is an area where not even I am saying that the government is failing to meet its international obligations. As the minister would know, I am quite often alleging that, as I did earlier on today. The benefit of it is that it would enable that to be done.

It can be done in other ways. It is not the end of the world if it does not happen. I am sure HREOC will continue to provide advice anyway. But it was an opportunity, because the issue arose during the course of the inquiry, to reinforce that by and large the Senate committee across the board found it a positive piece of legislation which could be improved upon and it was an opportunity to do so further. Perhaps in wrapping up all of that and the amendments themselves, it is appropriate to acknowledge that, despite the government’s nonacceptance of this particular amendment flowing from the committee inquiry, which I assume will stay the same despite my last contribution, there has been acceptance of a reasonable number of the recommendations from the committee inquiry. That should be acknowledged.

Question negatived.

Bill, as amended, agreed to.

AUSTRALIAN CITIZENSHIP (TRANSITIONALS AND CONSEQUENTIALS) BILL 2007

Bill—by leave—taken as a whole.

Bill agreed to.

Australian Citizenship Bill 2006 reported with amendments; Australian Citizenship (Transitionals and Consequentials) Bill 2006 reported without amendments; report adopted.