Nicolette Boele (Bradfield, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I rise in support of the motion brought by the member for Curtin to refer the Home Affairs Legislation Amendment (2025 Measures No. 1) Bill 2025 to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights for inquiry and report. I watched with dismay in the last term of parliament when the Albanese government rushed through bill after bill limiting the rights of asylum seekers and visa holders in our communities. The measures they introduced included establishing mandatory visa cancellations for low-level offences, giving the government immunity from civil liabilities in connection with bridging visa cancellations and expanding powers to search and seize items in immigration detention centres without a warrant. Each time, there was some contraction of the usual parliamentary process to get the bills through quickly and quietly, whether it was failing to refer bills to relevant committees for review or gagging debate on the bills in this House. We're seeing it again here with this bill.

This bill may have significant ramifications for the people to which it applies. Combined with the measures passed last term to which I've already referred, this bill may be another step in that slow creep towards stripping away rights of asylum seekers in this country. These are people we have harmed by exposing them to the cruel and unusual offshore detention system we dreamed up in a shameful world-first—a system that the UK government toyed with copying from us but abandoned, because it was just too inhumane.

I agree with the Leader of the Opposition's statement that the bill is rushed. It's secretive and it's chaotic—this for a bill which explicitly confirms that people like these do not have a right to natural justice in administrative processes. This could result in them being involuntarily—read forcibly—removed from this country to a third country, with no ability to be heard in the courts about that occurring.

What we're really talking about here is a breakdown in processes and a reduction of democratic norms at two very significant levels: the individual rights level, around people's right to natural justice, and the parliamentary level, by the curtailing of opportunities for scrutiny and informed debate. It's for both of these reasons that I consider the member for Curtin's motion to be entirely reasonable. Referring a bill with such significant ramifications for people's basic rights to a committee for review is the absolute bare minimum level of scrutiny that government should permit.

The government won a big margin in the last election—94 seats in this House. They must not be tempted to exploit that position by abandoning basic tenets of our parliamentary and democratic processes. On the contrary, I strongly urge them to use their huge majority to be the leaders that our people have elected them to be.

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