Josh Burns (Macnamara, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) notes that:

(a) refugees transferred to Australia from Nauru and Papua New Guinea for medical treatment are still being held in immigration detention centres and alternative places of detention, such as hotels, in Australia;

(b) many of these individuals have now been detained for over eight years and have suffered significant psychological harm as result of their prolonged and indefinite detention;

(c) the offshore detention program will cost taxpayers $811 million alone in the 2021-22 financial year despite:

(i) the impact on the physical and mental health of detainees; and

(ii) repeated offers to resettle asylum seekers from New Zealand; and

(d) there is overwhelming community support for the fair and humane treatment of Medevac refugees, including their release from detention, as evidenced by the #TimeForAHome campaign of over 160 civil society groups and organisations; and

(2) calls on the Government to:

(a) immediately accept New Zealand's offer to resettle 150 refugees per year;

(b) work towards resettling people languishing in indefinite detention; and

(c) move refugees transferred to Australia from Nauru and Papua New Guinea for medical treatment still being held in immigration detention centres and alternative places of detention into the community recognising that 'it's cheaper for people to be in the community than it is to be at a hotel or for us to be paying for them to be in detention and if they're demonstrated not to be a threat'.

I move this motion in my name, and I'm grateful to the member for Cooper, who will second it and who's been a champion for refugees throughout her career in this place and since her election. I'm also grateful for the support I've received from the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, from my friends Kon and Jana and all of the team there. The work they do is remarkable, and I cannot imagine how difficult it has been over this last year or so. I also want to acknowledge the grandmothers and all of the people who have stood up to add their voice to ensure that Australia doesn't continue the heartless and cruel policies that we've seen under the Morrison government.

It saddens me that we're talking about the very basic dignity and a very basic level of responsibility for the welfare and health care of people who are in our care. In the past year and a half, Australians, and indeed people all around the world, have had just a taste of what it is to be locked up. That is especially true for people who are in strict quarantine—not just stay-at-home restrictions, but 14-day quarantine—either at home or in a hotel. We've heard from many of them about how isolating it is, even for a short period of time, and how difficult it is to be stuck there and how lonely it is. Well, imagine being in hotel quarantine for a year. Imagine being there after having spent years in detention. Imagine the only reason you weren't still in offshore detention is that you were sick and you couldn't get adequate medical care in that offshore detention. The government flew you to Australia not because they wanted to but because they were forced to by a law that was passed against their will. Imagine the mental and emotional trauma that would cause you, not to mention the physical trauma.

We have heard from people about just how traumatised they are. Earlier this year, the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre brought two men to Canberra who had been through this entire ordeal. Thanush and Ramsiyar came to this country seeking asylum, and they spent eight years in various forms of detention. Eight years of the lives of these young men were spent locked up on Manus Island and then later in a hotel in Melbourne. While they were part of a cohort of around 100 people who were surprisingly released earlier this year, there are still over 100 medevac refugees in various forms of onshore detention in Australia, including five women. We have no idea if or when these people might be released. The government refuses to explain why some have been released into the community and others haven't. There are around 1,000 people on bridging visas with a completely uncertain future and minimal, if any, government support. There are still 230 asylum seekers stuck in offshore detention in PNG and Nauru.

How much does this cost Australian taxpayers? Over $811 million is committed in the 2021-22 budget alone. Let's be very clear about this. Even the former Minister for Home Affairs, Minister Dutton, has said:

Well it's cheaper for people to be in the community than it is to be at a hotel or for us to be paying for them to be in detention and if they're demonstrated not to be a threat … then it is cheaper for people to go out into the community …

We're talking about human beings who are not a threat to this country, who have committed no crime in seeking asylum, and yet the Morrison government is picking the most expensive and least humane option possible in keeping them in detention.

I want to acknowledge—because I have no doubt that members opposite will try to run up a scare campaign on the boats and people smugglers—Labor believes you can be strong on the borders without being weak on humanity. This government is weak on humanity. We have had an offer on the table since 2013, between Julia Gillard and John Key, to resettle 150 asylum seekers every year in New Zealand. That would have meant that there would be no-one in offshore detention in Australia. This government continues to refuse to accept that deal, yet we're still talking in this place about people who have been in detention for eight years. We can say that we won't resettle them here, but we can't just leave them in limbo. The government has failed to make any effort to accept the deals on the table or to try to negotiate others. They are just indifferent to this cruelty. We must do better for the people who are in our care. The government should accept the deals. The government should release people. We should put an end to indefinite detention.

Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Ged Kearney (Cooper, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Macnamara for bringing this motion forward. This issue always deserves discussion. I have been here for a while—in fact, I was elected in 2007. I heard very similar speeches to that in 2007, before the government of the day decided to relax the immigration procedures. What happened after that is well known: 50,000 unauthorised arrivals and at least 1,200 dead at sea. Being in government is not easy; it requires some resolve and some view to the entire issues, not just succumbing to a feel-good position.

No-one should forget what happened after the undoing of those tougher controls by then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. I've spoken to a number of people. I had a young man approach me in the last 12 months who was in Border Force. He was on the boat that was fishing people out of the sea off of Christmas Island when that terrible tragedy occurred. About two months later he was once again involved in pulling people out of the sea; I think three died that time. He's struggling with his mental health issues, I have to tell you. He said it's a deep and binding scar on him. He has been on Comcare for some time, trying to find a way back into the workforce. I've spoken to other people who worked for defence, and they said it's bad enough pulling bodies out of the water; it's even worse when they are disintegrating. With the policy we have in place, it is seven years since we've seen a successful landing by people into Australia. It's worth saying that in 2013 the enormity of what happened had sunk in, and the then Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, said boat arrivals will never be settled in Australia period.

I know this is a private member's motion. I'm not too sure what Labor Party policy is in that area, but, given the comments of the Leader of the Opposition position in the last week calling for the Murugappans—the Sri Lankan family who came here on a boat and have been through every process imaginable in Australia, as they've been surrounded by human rights lawyers, and at every level have been rejected as being genuine refugees—to be allowed to stay in Australia permanently, you can only presume that the Labor Party has a completely different position to what it had in 2013, and in fact we are in a revisitation of 2007, where it's okay to open the borders up and nothing will happen.

In fact, I even remember going to a church service at the time of the last election—not my local church; a church of my denomination. When the minister saw me walk in—

Sitting suspended from 10 : 39 to 10 : 52

In the period when the Baxter detention centre was open, a friend of mine was visiting an asylum seeker. My friend was going overseas, and he said to me, 'Would you go and visit the asylum seeker?' I said, 'Sure.' So I went and visited him. He was a very impressive young Iranian man. There is no doubt in my mind that he would have made a great Australian, but he wasn't a refugee. He did not meet the criteria. Eventually he left, and I believe he settled somewhere else in the world.

The point, as it is with all of these cases, is that the quality of the individual is not relevant to the cases that we make about border control, because every individual should be considered equal. In fact, there are probably five billion people in the world who would like to come to Australia and who would, indeed, make great Australians. But we cannot afford to open our border to five billion new Australians.

The member who moved this motion spoke about those who came to Australia under the medevac bill, which was a bill, once again, that was pushed through the parliament, backed by Labor. It proved to be exactly what we predicted it would. It was a breakthrough for doctors on these islands to sign off and get people into Australia, and then you couldn't shift them because they were surrounded by the phalanx of human rights lawyers that want to destroy our border place controls.

Ged Kearney (Cooper, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I strongly support the motion moved by my colleague the member for McNamara. It is incredibly important that we keep drawing attention to the Morrison government's ongoing policy of indefinite detention and the effects it has on people seeking asylum—trauma and suffering, helplessness and hopelessness. There are people locked up in various places—the Park Hotel in Melbourne, MITA and BITA—who have been in detention for eight years. Many of them have families and children and loved ones that they haven't seen in all that time. Let's be clear: they have committed no crime. They sought safety from war and persecution. Because of the Morrison government's pig-headedness, they remain detained.

This government uses indefinite detention as a punitive policy to deter people and refuses to act on solutions to actually resettle people. And the refugees are hurting so badly. When I visited the men at the Mantra Hotel, this was plain to see. They were ill, they were fearful and they were losing hope. Right now, there are 14 asylum seekers at MITA who are on a hunger strike. They don't understand why they are locked up when—thankfully and strangely—dozens of their friends have been released. The Morrison government has an arbitrary way of releasing people, and the absence of any information from the government explaining why some are released and others not has caused further mental health harm.

When refugees are released, the Morrison government chooses to continue to punish them. Those released are on six-month bridging visas with little or no support after an initial period of funded support for three to six weeks. Their fate is unknown and their lives are in limbo with unclear processes about visa renewal or any certainty for the future. This is awful policy and Labor does not support it.

Labor has supported the Game Over campaign and called on the Morrison government to immediately accept the New Zealand resettlement deal. That way, those who are still detained on PNG and Nauru could have safe, permanent homes. We've called on the government to release refugees into the community on ongoing bridging visas. We've called on them to extend appropriate supports and safety nets to those released into the community—because, as we know, at the Morrison government cruelly cut the crucial SRSS payments. And Labor has said that we want Priya, Nades, Kopika and Tharunicaa to return to their home in Biloela. The community there loves them, supports them and wants them home. Yet the Morrison government refuses to do any of these things. They are cruel.

Labor has a very different approach than the Morrison government. We would end indefinite detention, double the refugee intake, remove temporary protection visas and SHEVs, and allow for family reunions. We'll provide all asylum seekers and refugees with appropriate settlement services so they can get jobs, get housing, see a doctor, see a lawyer and have a living wage. We have a set of policies that are far more effective and compassionate. If we could implement them, it would make a difference to thousands of people seeking asylum and refugees.

In my few remaining minutes, I would like to thank the people who work so hard in this sector to advocate for asylum seekers and refugees and work closely with me and my colleagues for a better approach: Sister Bridget, in particular; the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre; Amnesty International; the Refugee Action Collective; Rural Australians for Refugees; the Refugee Council of Australia; and so many of my constituents in Cooper who I know feel very deeply about this and who constantly seek my support to amplify their voice in support of refugees and asylum seekers in Australia.

We do not support the cruel and inhumane policy of indefinite detention. It does nothing but cause harm, pain and a sense of hopelessness when all people are looking for is safety and a home free from persecution and free from fear.

Andrew Wilkie (Clark, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I support this motion and I applaud the ALP for moving it. At the same time, I condemn the confected expressions of concern for asylum seekers that I hear so often in this place from the Liberal and National parties and the Labor Party. I acknowledge that there are good people in those parties and in this chamber right now who personally have very strong views in support of asylum seekers. I also acknowledge that the ALP is to be applauded for supporting the medevac legislation, which, regrettably, was overturned with the change of government. But I'm going to say a few home truths here because we need to clear up the record.

Both the Liberal and National parties and the Labor Party support mandatory detention, offshore processing and tow backs. Both the Liberal and National parties and the Labor Party several weeks ago voted and spoke in support of the Migration Amendment (Clarifying International Obligations for Removal) Bill 2021. In fact, I was the only MP in the House of Representatives to speak against that bill, and there was no opportunity for a division. That bill legalises under Australian law the indefinite detention of noncitizens in Australia if their visa has been cancelled or expired and they can't be returned to their country of origin. So, in fact, in some circumstances the Labor Party supports indefinite detention.

These are all facts, and I think it's important that we understand that this is the case. I'm reaching out to both sides of the chamber—to the Liberal Party, the National Party and the Labor Party—and I'm saying to all three parties, 'You've got to lift your game and you've got to adopt a more humane and internationally lawful response to asylum seekers.' I note that neither the Liberal and National parties nor the Labor Party supported my Ending Indefinite and Arbitrary Immigration Detention Bill 2021. That bill provided that alternatives to immigration detention, which may take various forms depending on the particular circumstances of the individual, would be almost always used in preference to immigration detention. Under that bill, which received no support from any major party, immigration detention for noncitizens and refugees would have needed to be lawful, necessary, proportionate and for the shortest time possible. The provisions of that bill made mandatory detention illegal. The bill also clearly outlined the reasons, time frames, communication and services that would have to be available in immigration detention, and which would be independently monitored. So the government and the opposition were given the opportunity to support a bill that would have ended indefinite and arbitrary immigration detention, and that bill received no support from either.

My Refugee Protection Bill in 2019 also received no support from any major party. That bill provided for a sustainable, equitable and humane response to the protection and processing of asylum seekers and refugees in the Asia-Pacific region. A key component of that bill was the Asia-Pacific Asylum Seeker Solution, APASS, which was to be a regional framework initiated by the Australian government in partnership with other Asia-Pacific countries and overseen by the UNHCR—an alternative to our current regime of mandatory detention, tow backs, offshore processing and preparedness to indefinitely detain noncitizens who can't be returned to their country of origin.

I support the motion because of course we need to get the remaining people off Nauru and Manus Island in PNG. Of course we have to get the many people who are in immigration detention in Australia out of detention. The motion is sound. But we've got to stop these confected expressions of concern when, at the end of the day, Australia's bipartisan policy and its response to asylum seekers remain fundamentally immoral and illegal under international law. This country must adopt an alternative response to asylum seekers—one that is moral, one that is legal under international law and one that we can be proud of on the international stage. For now, we remain a pariah when it comes to our response to asylum seekers.

Alicia Payne (Canberra, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the member for Macnamara's motion on refugee resettlement and want to thank him for moving this very important motion today. Today in Australia over 100 refugees are detained in hotels and immigration detention facilities, including five women. There are 230 people who remain on Nauru or in Papua New Guinea. There are 1,000 people who are on bridging visas in our community. Medevac enabled asylum seekers caught in Australia's punitive system of immigration detention to access essential medical treatment here in Australia. There were 100 refugees who were released from detention in hotels during or after accessing vital medical treatment, but the Morrison government has halted these releases, and we don't know when they will begin again.

When someone is released into the Australian community on a bridging visa, they receive three to six weeks of support from the government and then they are on their own, in limbo, up against the confusing Australian immigration system. It is only thanks to organisations like the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre and other non-government organisations and community groups across Australia that support is available. With this support the 100 refugees released from hotel detention are succeeding. The majority have secured employment and have been welcomed into communities around Australia.

The Murugappan family are an example of the productive and happy lives that asylum seekers can live in the community. The community of Biloela want this family back, contributing to their community. The contrast between their lives in the community and the last four years they have spent in detention shows just how destructive and expensive our immigration detention systems are. The government has spent millions of dollars locking up the Murugappan family over the last four years. The government has said that the cost is almost $7 million, but other estimates say that the cost is closer to $50 million. Not only is this cruelty illegal under international law; it is shockingly costly. Compare this to living in the community where the Murugappan family worked, contributed, made friends and lived normal lives after years of trauma experienced in their home country. Canberrans want this family to remain in Australia and be allowed to return to their community in Biloela. I again back these calls and once again request that Ministers Hawke and Andrews use their powers available to them to grant this family permanent residency here in Australia in Biloela.

The 2021 ALP National Platform says:

Our platform also acknowledges the role of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees as the international agency dealing with the world's response to this humanitarian need. In government, Labor will ensure Australia is one of the leading contributors to the global work of the UNHCR, with a significant increase in funding for the UNHCR. The work of the UNHCR is vital, but the reality is that it is underfunded and underresourced. Asylum seekers wait years for permanent resettlement, and this has led to people risking their lives to take the boat journey to Australia. If you care about an orderly system of refugee resettlement here, you must be committed to a strong UNHCR and to a high level of refugee resettlement.

As per our national platform Labor will increase the humanitarian intake of refugees to create this orderly pathway to resettlement in Australia. Labor's aspiration is to progressively increase Australia's government funded humanitarian intake to 27,000 places per year and to progressively increase the community sponsored refugee program intake to 5,000 places per year. We know that temporary protection visas place refugees in an ongoing state of uncertainty and prevent meaningful settlement, creating hardship for refugees and denying Australia the benefit of their contribution. As per our national platform, Labor will abolish temporary protection visas and safe-haven enterprise visas and transition eligible refugees into permanent visa arrangements. We want protection claims made in Australia to be assessed and reviewed with procedural fairness and efficiency. Currently the system is not transparent, fair or consistent, and Labor will make these changes.

Although I personally struggle with the concept of third-country resettlement, I back it because I know, for many asylum seekers currently here in Australia, it will be the fastest way to enable them to live normal lives. The government should accept New Zealand's offer to resettle 150 refugees per year. In government, Labor will explore options other than indefinite detention, including third-country resettlement, to deal with refugees with adverse security assessments in a way that does not jeopardise Australia's national security interests. But, unlike the Morrison government, the Labor Party knows that indefinite detention is not the answer and is committed to ending it.

Debate adjourned.