Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I will not be supporting this motion and I will be moving an amendment. This is the Labor government taking us back to John Howard when they should be taking us back to Malcolm Fraser. Most galling about this motion to reopen the centre at Nauru is that there is a better alternative available right now that would save lives, comply with international law and domestic law, be humane and march in the great tradition of Australian multiculturalism. That alternative was available if Labor had chosen to work with the Greens on a more compassionate solution. But instead, as we have just been reminded by the previous speaker, we are faced with an intransigent government and minister, insistent on no deal unless it includes expelling people offshore to other countries. That is not something that is consistent with the conventions we have signed up to and it is not something that we are prepared to support.

Casting my mind back, I do not think there is anyone in this country who was not distressed and anguished at the reports and sight of hundreds of people losing their lives as they struggled when their boats capsized, as has happened on more than one occasion. I think everyone in this place and around the country grappled with the question: how do we best stop people risking their lives at sea? We hear a lot about the people smugglers' business model. If there is such a thing, the people smugglers' business model is based on desperation. It is based on people waiting in camps in places like Indonesia or Malaysia, having fled persecution, torture and situations that we think are so bad that we send our troops overseas to fight, trying to find a better life. They may well find themselves in a camp in Indonesia where there are over 8,000 people and joining the other thousand of those 8,000 who have already been declared to be refugees by the United Nations only to wait there years and years because there is no proper processing system in place and because this government and other governments do not do enough. When you have been waiting for years, having perhaps fled the Taliban or the threat of execution, to be taken to a better life and yet you find your hope diminishing day by day because there is no orderly process in the camp, there is no light at the end of the tunnel and you are stuck there wondering, 'Am I going to be here for the rest of my life?' you get on a boat. I would too. I reckon most people around this country would as well.

If they had been waiting desperately for years in a camp and someone came to them and said, 'For a bit of money, I'll get you on a boat and get you out of here,' people would snap it up. If I felt that that was the best way for me or my family to get to safety, I would probably do the same and I think most other people would as well.

So if we really want to stop people getting on those boats there is a simple answer, and that is: give the people in the camps some hope by putting in place an orderly processing system in Indonesia or in Malaysia so that they see light at the end of the tunnel, so that they understand, 'If I wait here long enough my turn will come, so I won't risk my life on a boat.' What would that mean? That would mean that from Indonesia, where there are 8,000 people waiting, we take 1,000 now. Let's beef up the processing capacity of Australia and of the United Nations in Indonesia so that we can process more people right there and then bring them to Australia safely. That is what all the experts told us, and have told us for many years, will stop people risking their lives on these desperate journeys.

During the course of this debate over many months, and indeed today, we have heard that this is a naive solution being proposed by the Greens. It is a solution based on what we did in this country in the decade after the Vietnam War, and our country is better for it. Our country is better for the fact that we took in between 90,000 and 100,000 refugees and their families in an orderly manner at the end of the war and settled them here through a regional processing arrangement. It was not easy and at the start of that process there was a lot of consternation about whether people were being treated fairly, but it stopped people risking their lives on the boats. That is the best way to stop loss of life: reintroduce a proper regional processing system. The Greens have been consistently advocating that. If you say that is a naive solution, then that is a very short-sighted reading of Australian history, because the solution that we have been advancing and will continue to advance is one that is based on appealing to the best in us in Australia and talking about what has worked and what we can do again.

Instead, we have had a government intent on trying to out-tough the coalition. Let me give you this piece of free advice: that is a battle you cannot win. If the government think that ultimately they have made a smart political decision then they are going to have to explain to the Australian population in a very short period of time why we now have people in as good as indefinite detention on island prisons or prison islands. That is one of the most worrying aspects of this approach from the government that over time is going to be subject to the scrutiny that it deserves.

What the government has said is that there is a so-called no-advantage principle underlying this. If you are serious about that, that means asking how long someone waits in Indonesia or in Malaysia and saying, 'Let's make them stay in prison or on an island for that length of time.' The figures we have heard from the people who are actually working in those camps is that it could be a decade. It could be longer. It is appalling that this parliament is being asked right now to vote on a measure to send people to be detained in another country without knowing how long they will be detained there. This will come back and haunt this government.

I accept that this is a tough issue. If you do not think this is a tough issue, you are not paying enough attention. I accept that there is probably no easy answer. This is a global problem and one that we as a country have to manage. It is not a problem that is ever going to be solved, because unless we make our country as bad as Afghanistan and unless our government becomes as bad as the Taliban we are always going to be a more attractive place for people to come to. So the question is not how we stop it but how we manage it. Do we manage it fairly or do we say that we will take a tough approach?

One of the things we must never forget is that this approach of deterrence just does not work. Three hundred and fifty-three people lost their lives coming here on the SIEVX when the full gamut of onshore processing and mandatory detention arrangements were in place—353 people lost their lives. Why? Because, as I said before, Australia, with its democracy and its good standard of living, will always be a more attractive place for people who are fleeing persecution. And so we would want it to be. So people will continue to take to boats and people will continue to die.

It may be that, as a result of this arrangement, people stop coming here. I do not think they will, but let's say they do. Let's take that argument through. People are still going to get on boats; they will just go elsewhere. It might be that they die on leaky boats on the way to New Zealand or to Canada. If we are really concerned about people dying, and I believe everyone in this House is, then we should adopt the solution that is going to minimise the chance of people getting on a boat, and that is a regional processing solution where we take more people directly from the camps, where we process them there and bring them here.

The amendment that I want to move is premised on this motion succeeding in this House. It is clear that, because Labor chooses to work with the coalition rather than working with the Greens on these questions, it wants a John Howard style solution and is going to get it through this parliament.

So, if it is going to go through, then we should at least ensure a minimum standard of decency. We know from all the mental health experts that, if you lock people up indefinitely, it destroys them. What they tell us is that you do not want to have someone locked up in detention for longer than 12 months, at an absolute outer limit. So, if this motion is going to get through, there should be a cap on how long someone can spend in detention. At the very least, the minister should be able to come in here and tell us how long someone is going to spend in detention on Nauru. The fact that he cannot is shameful. So let us try and give some parliamentary oversight to it. I move:

That all words after “and” (first occurring) in Mr Morrison’s amendment be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

“calls on the government to put in place a 12 month time limit on immigration detention in Nauru.”

That should be something that the government are prepared to accept. It is premised on them getting their way and offshore processing beginning, but it puts in place an outer limit that will ensure that people's mental health is preserved.

If the government are not prepared to support a 12-month time limit on detention, if they are not prepared to come in here and tell us what the maximum is, then we are seeing a green light for an assault on the mental health of some of the world's most vulnerable people. How can we leave this debate and this parliament not knowing how long one of these people is going to be locked up? Ask yourself this: if you or your family were in a situation where you feared for your life, perhaps because you were politically outspoken, perhaps just because you found yourself in the wrong religion, and you found yourself on a boat, through no fault of your own but simply because you had waited for years in a refugee camp and did not think you were getting anywhere and someone had said, 'Let me find you a way out of here,' how long would you say it was okay for you or your family to be locked up? I challenge anyone to be prepared to fully apply the perils of this no-advantage test, so-called, and say that that means we will lock someone up for longer than a year. That, unfortunately, is the way the government has chosen to go. It is disappointing, given that our history is rich in alternatives that we could be adopting. Instead of going back to Fraser, we are going back to Howard.

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