Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr President. This motion of course has been put forward by the government to change the order of business to rush through legislation that was only introduced into the House at four o'clock yesterday. There has been no explanation given by the government as to why this is urgent. There has been no explanation given at all as to why it has to be rammed through both chambers in a matter of 24 hours.

We know that the government is in a flux because there is a case before the High Court that suggests that the detention and the spending of billions and billions of Australian taxpayers' dollars is illegal in terms of offshore processing in Nauru and Manus Island. But the minister responsible, the immigration minister, has known about this case since February and the case has been before the court since May. What is the explanation for this having to be rammed through now, even when the High Court itself will not be hearing the arguments of the case until September? There has been no explanation given by the government as to why the entire Senate agenda has to be thrown out the window today to bring on this piece of legislation. It makes you wonder what is going on that they desperately want to hide.

We know this government is in absolute denial about the human rights abuses that are going on inside the immigration detention camps on Nauru and Manus Island. We know that they are desperate to keep secret how they run these concentration camps. We know that they are desperate to keep the public eye out of what is going on in these places. Now we find out that locking up children for the last three years in the hellholes in Nauru may indeed have been illegal all along—not just the spending of money but the detention of those children as well. It staggers me that the minister wants to come in here today and throw out the normal Senate agenda to push through a piece of legislation that was only introduced to the House at 4 pm yesterday—less than 24 hours ago. Why on earth the Labor Party have given the government a nod and a wink to allow this to happen is beyond me.

This court case is one about a number of families who are here in Australia—a newborn baby, a number of young children, people who are currently listed for deportation to Nauru. That is why this case has been put forward. This government want to send to Nauru a baby who was born here, an Australian born baby, and lock that child up indefinitely. That child currently has a case before the High Court to ask whether it is legal to be locked up, jailed and detained indefinitely in Nauru. Rather than allowing that child and her family to have their day in court, the government wants to scuttle the court case, push through legislation and ensure that that child will remain in indefinite detention in the hellholes in the Nauru camp. That is what this piece of legislation is about. That is what this hours motion is about.

It is unconscionable that the government and the Labor Party are willing to throw all rules out the window, throw out all normal Senate procedure, in order to push this through. You have to wonder why the government are so afraid of a newborn baby's right to have a court consider whether it is legal that they be jailed or not? What is so worrying to the government that that child has a right to have its day in court and that the family have a right to have a judge consider whether their indefinite detention is indeed legal for the government to do?

There are almost 80 children here in Australia at the moment whose livelihoods depend on whether this High Court case wins or not. These 80 children are all here in Australia and the government want to deport them to Nauru. We know the awful conditions inside that camp. There is the Moss review and the Human Rights Commission report, and of course the Senate's own inquiry, which is currently underway, has seen mounting evidence of child abuse, sexual assault and harassment—conditions that the UN describe as amounting to torture. That is how this place is being run in Nauru.

Rather than allowing a court to make a decision on whether that child—a newborn baby born here in Australia—should be deported, locked up in that place indefinitely, the cabinet want to rush through emergency legislation in less than 24 hours, throw all the Senate procedure out the window and ram legislation through to say, 'Yes, okay, the Australian parliament believes that this child deserves to be indefinitely detained.' Well, they do not deserve to be indefinitely detained; they do not deserve to be detained in these horrendous conditions. If indeed there is a need to respond legislatively to whatever the High Court decides, well wait until the High Court has made a decision; wait until the High Court has heard the case and made a determination. At least consider the legislation before ramming it through—it was only tabled in the House at 4 pm yesterday. I must point out that Senator Brandis misled this chamber yesterday in question time when I asked him about this matter. He said that the legislation had been tabled—