Zoe Daniel (Goldstein, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

Why do people become asylum seekers and refugees? Is it a choice? Who would leave their family, friends and homeland to take a dangerous journey to a foreign country and, in the case of Australia, to then face long-term or indefinite detention, if they had a choice? Consider further how after fleeing war, strife and persecution one might be affected by indefinite detention—hope all but taken away, physical and mental health issues developed and then compounded as a result.

I have spent substantial time in refugee camps: in Darfur in Sudan where the camps are so vast they're like small cities; in Kakuma in Kenya, again a mammoth humanitarian complex full of traumatised people; in the putrid camps in Rakhine State in western Myanmar and on the Thai-Burma border and elsewhere. In Malaysia I have met Syrians and people from Afghanistan who in some cases have been waiting in the community for resettlement for decades, with no work, school or health rights.

Having stood on the shore of Christmas Island in 2010 watching Australian Navy divers searching for the dead after a boat ran aground, I have actively argued with asylum seekers and urged them not to take a boat—not because seeking asylum is illegal but for their own safety. Yet some will still make that decision that they must take that step. How do we treat those people? The answer: with cruelty.

We have ongoingly breached the spirit of the 1951 Refugee Convention. Even after people have been judged through our own system to be genuine refugees we have still denied them resettlement. Those who are in indefinite detention both onshore and offshore must be released into the Australian community.

If the government plans to stick with its plan not to permanently resettle people in Australia who come by boat—I don't agree with it—what is the plan? My community in Goldstein has told me loud and clear that we must provide genuine refugees with a path back to hope, family, safety and community.

Many in Goldstein also understand that we may not always be immune from conflict. Things can change quickly, as Ukraine has proved. They argue: treat people the way you would like to be treated.

I took a progressive refugee policy to the election and guess what? Rather than rejecting it, the people of Goldstein rejected the politics of fear. Those who voted for me also supported my call for an independent, expert review of Australia's treatment, detention and processing of people seeking asylum and refugees; to hold a summit on migration and detention laws to take measurable action on implementing the review's recommendations, with a particular focus on regularising visa status for all in residency limbo and harnessing community compassion by scaling up well considered community sponsorship programs.

Let's innovate this. Let's spend this political capital while we have it. It's time to consider shifting the billions spent on offshore detention to support refugees in transit countries as well as to reboot a regional approach—a successor to the Bali process involving origin, transit and destination countries. Apart from anything else, it's costing billions in taxpayers' money to sustain cruel and unusual punishment, meanwhile making us an international embarrassment. It's time to address the way that our government treats asylum seekers and refugees. I truly hope that after the minister's comments we can return to a humanitarian refugee policy, rather than treating it as a national security issue. As a first step, I call on the government to urgently end the practice of indefinite detention of refugees both offshore and onshore.

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