Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's with great pleasure that I stand in this House to speak to the motion moved by the member for Macnamara, a colleague for those of us on this side of the House and a strong advocate—amongst many within the Labor Party—for a fair, compassionate and humane approach to policy work on refugees and asylum seekers in Australia. I'm delighted to stand to speak in support of this motion today.

Australians have gone through collective heartbreak in these last few weeks as we've seen the Murugappan family cruelly ripped apart by this government. This is a family whose two children were born here in Australia. This is a family who has been contributing to Australia—to the social and cultural capital of this nation—for more than four years now. In 2018 the government burst into their home in rural Australia and tore this family from their new life. One of the children, Tharnicaa, was evacuated earlier this month to the Perth Children's Hospital to be treated for pneumonia and a suspected blood infection she acquired while in detention on Christmas Island. The family was separated and spent weeks apart until, finally, last week the minister allowed the family to be reunited in Perth. Yet they remain there in community detention until there is a decision on their case, which is currently before the courts.

The government could, of course, use ministerial discretion in this case. Peter Dutton, let me remind you, used ministerial discretion 450 times in the period he was the immigration minister, from 2014 to 2018. Probably lots of those were au pairs, but many of them were asylum seekers and refugees. Has there been a flood of au pairs or others into this country since? No. Has the integrity of the system collapsed because he used his discretion 450 times? No. The government should have exercised that discretion much, much earlier on. This is now a tragic mess of the government's own making. Only Labor will be able to fix this mess from government. There is a definite need for a sense of humanity to be brought back into these discussions.

Most Australians recognise that the policymaking challenges in this area are complex, but they are being made more so by the politics of false binaries and unnecessary aggression from Minister Dutton and those around him. This noise has crowded out both a reasoned and reasonable exchange of ideas and the voices of those whose lives are directly affected by the policy choices of this government. We have to change this. We have to prevail over the politics of fear and division. Migrants and refugees have made a very important social, economic and cultural contribution throughout our nation's history. Australians are rightly proud of our immigration story and should be concerned at how this government has been undermining the foundations of our nation. It's our job to call out the dog-whistling rhetoric.

Labor aspires to progressively increase Australia's government-funded humanitarian intake of refugees to 27,000 places. We also want to increase the community-sponsored refugee program intake to 5,000 places a year. This is a highly successful program in comparable nations like Canada. It's what the Australian community has been asking for and it's what we should be spending our energy and resources on right now. We think that we can do much more to address the global humanitarian crisis. We need a compassionate approach to asylum seekers which enables refugees to progress their claims safely and securely. To deny people the care they need isn't being tough on borders and control; it's downright cruel and barbaric. And the government should be immediately accepting New Zealand's offer to resettle 150 refugees per year. There is no time to waste. Take that offer up and start acting in a compassionate and humane manner.

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