Russell Broadbent (Monash, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's a pleasure to stand where a lot of consideration has been given to a bill by both parties—and at length, clearly. What I would just like to point out, though, is many members of the public do not understand the concept of refoulement and how it works. I'd like to explain it in the member for Monash's way, Russell Broadbent's way. If someone has entered this country and overstayed their visa for whatever reason and they don't have authority, a personal authority, to be in the country, then we have an obligation to look after our—I'm not saying our borders, but the regime that protects the citizenship of a nation. This has been fairly controversial lately, but let's go to this issue rather than other issues. And so if somebody has put themselves in a position where they are not capable of staying in this country, they don't have a legal right to be in the country—this happens no matter who is in government—then we have options to give them some other due consideration. It might be by the minister. It might be through the courts. They are options that we can give. Australia gives people more options than any other country in the world to identify themselves as somebody who has a right to stay. We really do. We go out of our way. But, if for some reason, we have not been in the right place at the right time, we do not understand their considerations or we have misunderstood the reasons for their being here in Australia, they have many options to go through before we say, 'No, you have to leave the country.' In that process, we say that we do not allow people in refoulement—that is, by deporting you from this country, we would put you in a place of your peril, of your physical danger or of your rights of activity in another country that may be absolutely and totally inappropriate under our national values here in Australia—that someone would be under severe threat of prosecution or death, or of imprisonment, for that matter—it depends—if they were returned to their own country.

So we have a regime. In some cases, when people are going through the courts or through other processes, we have a regime of detention. It's already here in Australia. As the world knows, I, the member for Monash, do not like indefinite detention in this country. I'll say that to anybody. I'll keep on saying it wherever I can. A nation needs to have the heart, the soul and the spirit to say that this is not how we treat people in this country. However, this is not the time to go there and say what I think about that.

We have a bill before us. I should say that the Liberal and National parties and the opposition parties—the Labor Party, the Greens and the Independents—take these issues really seriously, because they are people's lives we are dealing with. These are decisions we're making about people's lives. We all take them very seriously. However, if you have fouled your own nest in this country or done the wrong thing—people often forget that it's not only about the people who do not have a legal right to be here. We have to protect our own community from people who perhaps should not be here. If it's found that they shouldn't be in this country, they should be sent back to their own country. The government takes its international obligations really seriously in these matters, because we want to keep our reputation as a nation that treats people fairly in every instance possible—fairly under our law, fairly under our mutual obligations to each other and fairly under our international obligations in the treaties that we, as a nation, have signed up to and said that we will abide by. Refoulement comes into that area. We are not going to send people into refoulement.

For me, this is rather technical, as it was described by the shadow minister. Australia takes its international obligations very seriously and has a longstanding policy of not forcibly removing an unlawful noncitizen in breach of Australia's non-refoulement obligations. We won't do it. Where there have been changes in legislation or proposed changes from courts' rulings, the government, on behalf of the people of Australia, have to act. A recent judgement by a single judge of the Federal Court has altered the operation of section 197C of the Migration Act in a manner which is inconsistent with the intention of the Parliament of Australia. What have we got here? We've got a clash between the courts and the intention of the parliament in these matters. The parliament is now resolving to move this legislation so that the issue of certain persons of faith will not come before this, because we are doing these things. How did this come about? Obviously, it was raised with the opposition and there were some considerations made. We sat down, the opposition and the government, negotiated as to how we would resolve this matter and came to an agreement, which has formed this legislation. If I'm incorrect, please tell me now, but that is what you have done. The legislation has been put before the opposition, and they have worked through it piece by piece by piece. But then they put in place a couple of things that have been described to me just today. First, in 12 months time we are going to look at how this is working; is that correct?

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