Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have received a letter from the honourable member for Bradfield and the honourable member for Warringah proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:

The need for the Government to urgently end the practice of indefinite detention of refugees—both offshore and onshore.

I call upon those members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their place s—

Zali Steggall (Warringah, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On 19 July many refugees entered their 10th year in detention in Nauru and Papua New Guinea. In the Australian Labor Party national platform 2021—prior to the election—it's written:

Under Labor's policies, unauthorised arrivals who enter for the purpose of seeking asylum will be mandatorily detained, for management of health, identity and security risks to the community. Labor will strive to ensure this is for no longer than 90 days.

There are 216 people remaining in Australia's offshore facilities. They have been detained for over nine years now. Today is the 72nd day since the Prime Minister was sworn in, so I would argue that 90-day goal of process is running dangerously short. I urge the Prime Minister and the government to act urgently to end the suffering of those seeking refuge.

Yesterday I met with Betelhem and Ismail, who each spent years in offshore detention before being transferred to onshore detention in the Park Hotel in Melbourne. They described the dehumanising experience, the uncertainty driving deterioration of physical and mental health, and the pain of being separated from family indefinitely. Both Betelhem and Ismail are now living in the community, working and contributing to the vibrant communities in which they live. They told me of their sorrow for those who are still in Nauru and in Papua New Guinea. I was embarrassed, as an Australian, to sit in front of these people and feel deeply responsible for their suffering and the suffering of their friends.

Many of those who remain in offshore detention are from Afghanistan. Since the takeover by the Taliban last year, they clearly do not have a safe home to return to. There's the exhaustion of those who are now entering their 10th year of detention, engaging in the tiresome processes of the paperwork needed to be resettled in the USA, Canada or New Zealand with no time line and without adequate health care to make sure they're even well enough to engage in the process.

I was proud to support Amnesty International's Game Over campaign to finally get agreement to the New Zealand deal to resettle refugees there. But this leaves those in Papua New Guinea completely abandoned by Australian authorities, leaving UNHCR to take up the negotiation for their resettlement separately. The majority of those who remain in offshore detention have a pathway to resettlement, so there is no reason not to bring them to Australia to recover their health and spend time in community while they wait for resettlement elsewhere. Betelhem's and Ismail's stories are, unfortunately, all too familiar to the teams at the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, Amnesty International and the Refugee Advice & Casework Service who provide vital support services to these vulnerable people.

I urge the government to urgently accelerate resettlement processes with New Zealand, the United States and Canada; bring to Australia all those in offshore detention with resettlement pathways while they await resettlement; implement the policy of their national platform; cap processing and detention at 90 days; allow refugees and asylum seekers to work, to provide these people with an improvement in their quality of life and to address national workforce shortages; and provide a permanent pathway to those on temporary protection visas and adults on bridging visas the right to study. It is outrageous that we stand in this place and talk about skill shortages in so many caring industries where we need people to be able to contribute, and yet we have refugees in detention in our community unable to contribute in the way in which they would like to. We are better than this. We are better than the Australia that, for the last 20 years, has treated horrifically those trying to seek refuge and a better life in Australia.

I urge the government to close the door on our shameful offshore detention and processing of refugees, our shameful treatment of those coming to our shores for a better life, and make sure we now turn a page to much better policies and a humane treatment of refugees. We must do this in a timely way. I know the community of Warringah cares deeply about this, as do the constituents of many of the others on this crossbench, where communities have had enough of the political parties using the fate of these incredibly vulnerable people as political footballs. I urge the government to do better on this.

Andrew Giles (Scullin, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Deputy Speaker Claydon, I think this is my first opportunity to congratulate you on your elevation. It's great to see you sitting in that chair as Deputy Speaker, and I look forward to the work that you will do in the chair and in the broader responsibilities you have for this parliament.

I thank the member for Warringah for putting this motion before the House. I think it is fair to say that it is the first genuine matter of public importance that has been put before the House in this, the 47th parliament.

I also note that she has taken the House to a number of elements of Labor's national platform. Let me be very clear: we are determined—and, as minister responsible for many of these issues, I am determined—to implement all of the aspects of the platform. I say to the member for Warringah and, indeed, to all of the members of the crossbench, with many of whom I've had the opportunity to start discussions about these matters and engage about their concerns and their ideas—including the member for Clark, of course—that I am keen to work with them. I am determined to change the tone of debate on these issues. It is probably the case that we are not always going to agree about every aspect of this very challenging area of public policymaking, but I am determined that no more, as the member for Warringah has just said, will vulnerable human beings be used as political footballs in this place or more broadly in the political debate in Australia. It has been coarsened for too long. That must end. It does end.

The Prime Minister and the Minister for Climate Change and Energy have talked about ending the climate wars, and it looks like we are making real progress in this parliament to do that. We also need to do something very similar so that we can work on playing the role that Australia must play as an exemplar in the context of the world in which we live—the world that is beset by the awful conflict in Ukraine, the terrible circumstances in Afghanistan and circumstances across the world which mean that today there are more people forcibly displaced than at any other time in human history. That is a call to action domestically but also a call for constructive engagement regionally and globally. That is something that I think every member of the House should be involved in and concerned for.

The member for Warringah spoke very effectively about her meeting with Betelhem and Ismail. I didn't meet with Betelhem, but I did meet with Ismail and with Thanush, a young man who I've met with on many occasions, and I bore witness to their experiences. I say this in respect of the issues about those people in offshore detention: 10 years ago, the then Prime Minister of New Zealand, John Key, made an offer that that group of people be resettled. Had that offer been accepted, every single one of those people that have been resettled and would have been rebuilding their lives productively in New Zealand. Of course, there are many who are also doing that in the United States right now. These are things that should have been addressed many, many years ago. I am appreciative that the government of New Zealand's offer was lately accepted by the former government, and I have been pleased to be in discussions with Minister Wood. I know Minister O'Neil has also been in discussions with our counterparts in New Zealand to make sure that that very generous offer can move forward in an expeditious manner so people can rebuild their lives.

I'm conscious also that the matter of public importance before the House deals with the detention of refugees—and, I think it's fair to say, people seeking asylum as well as refugees—who are on shore in the immigration detention network. Can I say this: the state of the network is something that is of great concern to me. It is also of great concern to me—as it was in opposition, it is now in government—that people should be held in immigration detention as a matter of last resort. That is something that we called for in opposition. It's something that I'm working my way towards as a member of this government. But that also requires me to think about those people who are for the moment required to be in held immigration detention facilities. I should point out that there are fewer people in those facilities now than there were at the election of this government.

There are some concerning reports that have been put to me about conditions and incidents in detention, all of which I take with the utmost seriousness, including, of course, the tragedy in Yongah Hill about six weeks ago, which caused me to visit that centre and see for myself the conditions there. I did so after being briefed by the Commonwealth Ombudsman. In the exercise of their responsibilities to provide oversight for the network, they have made a number of recommendations which we're working through. They are very sensible recommendations which deserve serious attention. The opportunity to engage with the Ombudsman is important to me.

They are, of course, not the only body with a responsibility in this regard. I've also met with the Australian Human Rights Commission to work through some of their concerns and to consider some of their feedback about how we can do a better job at ensuring that anyone who is in the network is safe at all times and their human rights are consistently protected and upheld. I've also met with the Red Cross to work through some of the issues and with organisations that look to the specific needs and concerns of the minority of immigration detainees who are women. There are some particular concerns there that require some further work on the part of government. I have also met, of course, with the UNHCR to work through the issues they have in this regard, as well as engaging with them on their ideas around some of the concerns about regional processing, which the member for Warringah has stepped us through.

These are all significant issues that require work. I'd like that work to be a collaborative process, in the spirit with which this motion has been brought forward. I think, Member for Warringah, that you and I have some time to discuss these matters later in the week, and I'm sure that will be an ongoing dialogue—a respectful dialogue—that I hope can also involve other members of the crossbench and, of course, members of the Greens. I should say that I've been pleased to engage with Senator McKim too, who has portfolio responsibilities in that regard.

These issues that are put before the House now are of concern to the people that I represent and to many of my colleagues and friends here. They are matters that have been of concern to me since long before I was elected to this place. These are issues that are within the capacity of this government—and this parliament—to substantially advance, particularly if we are all prepared to look at the interests of vulnerable human beings seeking our help, on the one hand, and the broader questions that go to our national interest and maintaining a secure border on the other.

These are issues that sometimes raise some very complex and challenging policy questions, but the politics of this needn't be challenging. If we can walk away from the use of these people as political collateral, that work, that shared responsibility in this place to achieve more durable solutions more quickly, will be so much easier. We will be better as a parliament for that, and we will be so much better as a community. That is something that I am determined to do.

I started my remarks by talking about the tone of this debate. It is a debate that has coarsened us as a nation. I think we have to reflect on that. We have to reflect, all of us in this place, on what has happened in our society and our politics since September 2001—since the time of the Tampa and all the other associated events.

Anne Aly (Cowan, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Early Childhood Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The children overboard.

Andrew Giles (Scullin, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The children overboard, as the member for Cowan reminds me. Over and over again, we have seen shocking political abuses of vulnerable people. We have seen the politics of fear deployed too often in this place and much too often in the media. That has been to the cost of all of us, and most particularly to our cost as a country that has historically been an exemplar in this space. When we think about modern Australia, it is impossible to overlook the fact that since World War II we have resettled 930,000 refugees. It is impossible to conceive of the country we live in today—this vibrant, diverse and dynamic multicultural society without thinking about the contribution of those 930,000 people—their resilience, their strength, their talents and their contributions. Everything we do in this space must seek to honour that—to honour our best side—to the world.

I don't say this to walk away from the tough political choices that are here, but the frame for this has got to be in the terms the Prime Minister has so often set out: we can maintain strong borders without abandoning our humanity. I put it slightly stronger than that: we can only maintain strong borders if we elevate our compassion and humanity.

Kylea Tink (North Sydney, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Providing a welcoming, secure and respectful environment for refugees results in greater social and economic benefits for everyone and a stronger, more cohesive Australia. In my electorate of North Sydney, both the North Sydney and Lane Cove local government areas have long been refugee welcome zones, demonstrating compassion for refugees and acknowledging the tremendous contribution these people have made and continue to make to our lives. Yet it remains that at the federal level many people—arguably still in this place—are simply out of step with the community values of fairness and decency, and the policies of successive Labor and Liberal governments over decades have fallen short of Australia's international obligations and our community's expectations.

Under former Prime Minister Howard, policymakers and the media shifted the language around refugees. These people became known as 'illegals', 'illegal asylum seekers' or 'queue jumpers'. In doing this, we denied them the fundamental truth of who they are and what they need: refuge in a nation that, up until that point in time, had been known as a welcoming country. But over the past two decades political expediency and cynicism have won out. Dog whistling fear has won out over compassion. Now is beyond time for this change, and we must start with an immediate end to the indefinite detention of refugees both here in Australia and offshore.

By its very nature, mandatory detention is arbitrary and thus contrary to international law. Despite this, as of March 2022 Australia is holding 1,512 people in detention facilities, including 1,450 men and 62 women. Offshore, more than 200 people remain stuck in detention in Nauru or Papua New Guinea, and, since offshore processing began in 2012, the Australian government, our government, has sent around 4,183 people to Nauru or Papua New Guinea.

For these thousands of people that both Labor and Liberal governments have kept under lock and key over the past decade, the average length of detention has been steadily increasing and is now, according to the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, the highest it has ever been, at 726 days. That has turned into 726 nights of not being able to sleep in peace, not finding yourself in a safe place you can call home. Another way to think of it is 17,424 hours away from family and friends. The absolutely heartbreaking thing is that some people seeking refuge have been locked in detention for even longer. Over 120 people were held in detention by our nation for five years or more, with several having spent more than 10 years in detention. That's 87,600 hours. The truth is that every minute in every one of those hours has felt like a lifetime. In this cruelty, Australia is truly a global outlier. We are unique in locking people up on a mandatory basis and without time limits. In comparable jurisdictions such as the United States it's about 55 days. In Canada it's 14 days. Faster turnarounds can and must be achieved.

Yesterday I met with three courageous people, Ismail, Thanush and Betelhem, who came to Australia seeking safety and protection. Instead, successive governments have dished up nothing but cold-hearted cruelty, uncertainty and fear. Ismail told me he spent seven years—that's 61,320 hours—in detention. He started out as a young, healthy, strong man, but he admitted that even he has been broken by detention. Ismail left a son who was only months old when he fled, and he has not seen him since. Now Ismail, released only four months ago, lives in the community but is unable to work and describes himself as a living ghost.

We need a renewed commitment by Australia to comply with its international legal obligations, to begin to repair our reputation as a good international citizen and a leader in human rights. Community based alternatives to detention should be used whenever possible, and surely it goes without saying that children should never ever be detained. The first step of dismantling the cruelty of indefinite detention is that the remaining 216 people who have sought our safety and protection must be evacuated from Nauru and Papua New Guinea. To our new government— (Time expired)

Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Australia has a proud history of welcoming new migrants to our nation. Our economic and social prosperity was built on the back of migrants, and we thank them for their wonderful contribution to our nation. At last year's census it was indicated that 30 per cent of the Australian population was born overseas and almost half of Australians—48.2 per cent—have a parent who was born overseas. In our homes we speak about 200 different languages. We boast about 180 different ancestries and we practise many different religions and theologies. But we do so in an environment of peace, respect and goodwill. That is the key to the success of Australia's multiculturalism and our diversity, and it's made Australia one of the most successful multicultural nations in the world.

But that success didn't come on the back of luck. That success was built on government policy that promoted a culture of migration and of supporting multiculturalism and diversity in Australia. Importantly, it was built on government policies that supported those principles. The key to that is successful settlement and integration into Australian society for new migrants. It's in providing settlement services, English language services, housing for new migrants, schooling for their children and, importantly, access to skills training and employment so they can participate in the workforce.

For government to successfully provide those services, we must have an orderly and a government-supported migration program. It's often in that program that we have the key to prevent having migrants living in poverty, being illegal workers with no welfare support, as we see in many other nations. So the success of Australia's migration program has been built on an orderly, structured government-sponsored program. Our migration intake each year includes a number of humanitarian visas as part of a refugee program. In international comparisons, Australia does its bit when it comes to resettling refugees. A UNHCR report covering 2015 to 2021 indicated that Australia resettled the fourth-largest number of refugees through the UNHCR, at about 25½ thousand refugees. When it comes to internationally displaced people and urgent conflicts like in Syria, Afghanistan and Ukraine, Australia acts quickly and decisively to offer humanitarian support and resettle people as quickly as possible. When they come to Australia, of course they deserve that support and that resettlement program that the government offers to make their resettlement a success.

But to ensure that success it's important that people come through that government program. That is the key to that success, and it is the key to ensuring that we have the health, education and housing services to support newly arrived migrants. In the past some people have sought to arrive outside that resettlement program. They've undertaken boat journeys. We all know the reasons people get into that desperate situation and take those boat journeys, but it did result in tragic and deadly consequences. A large number of vulnerable people, in particular children, lost their lives. A tough policy was put in place in Operation Sovereign Borders. It's supported by this government, and it will remain in place, because it has worked. But it has resulted in some people being transferred offshore and being in detention because, when their applications were assessed, they failed security and criminal records checks.

But I want to make it clear, as the minister did, that as a principle this new government believes that if an asylum seeker has no security issues, health or safety issues or other adverse issues then they should be able to live in the community until their application is finalised. The new government is working to achieve that. There is a backlog, and we're trying to work through that backlog as quickly as possible, and the minister is doing a great job in doing that. We've also offered humanitarian visas to 8,600 Ukrainians in the interim, as well as people from Afghanistan. We are trying to do it as humanely as possible, but that principle of ensuring that people can live in the community if they have no adverse security issues remains. (Time expired)

Zoe Daniel (Goldstein, Independent) Share this | Link to 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.

Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's lovely that the member for Fenner has come to join us on this his 50th birthday. I wish you a happy birthday! Thank you to the member for Warringah for bringing this debate and I appreciate your genuine interest and contribution on this.

The electorate I represent, on the 2016 census—I haven't actually checked the latest figures—covers the most multicultural part of Australia, the city of greater Dandenong. I have nearly 200,000 people in my electorate. I note the public discussion about resourcing. At any time we would like to sit down and have a cup of tea and talk about what it's like to represent an electorate with tens of thousands of non-citizens, who create far more work, frankly—and we do our best—than citizens. I've also represented, in previous boundaries, wealthy areas and I can tell you what generates more constituent work.

My staff joke that I'm most popular amongst people who can't vote. Every morning my emails are a sea of human misery—and not just the ones we get from Afghanistan—from people in the community, most of whom, again, are not citizens. I think in the south-east, in my electorate, we host about a quarter of the asylum seekers resident in Victoria, and I have more people who were born in Afghanistan in my electorate than there are any other electorate in this parliament. So my focus since I was elected has not actually been on the offshore detention; it's been on the human misery and economic carnage that is the Department of Home Affairs, and trying to speed up the visa processing.

I made a bit of a contribution on that on Monday night, and I said I'll continue to speak up even if it doesn't always please the ministers or certainly the departmental secretary. But I do acknowledge, from my deep conversations, that many people who are in immigration detention, onshore and offshore, live in my community and have views on this. Many, many, many people still have connections with people in onshore and offshore detention. There's strong community interest. It may surprise people, though, to suggest that actually the majority of people I hear from in my community do not want to see the boats restarted. There's not strong demonstrated, expressed community support for settling people who arrive by boat. I just make that point.

Honourable Member:

An honourable member interjecting—

Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm not suggesting you do. I'm making that point because there have been a number of points made in the debate. The overwhelming focus is on an orderly migration program, where at times you say a quick yes or a quick no, not a 10-year-long maybe, which was the absolute disgrace that we saw under the previous government. So I will fight in this budget and in every budget henceforth for more resources into the visa-processing system. It is without doubt 80 to 90 per cent of the work in my office, and it is an abomination how we've treated people in this country—an absolute abomination.

It's also true, as has been said, that we have more people displaced at the moment in the world than ever before in recorded, modern human history. We've had 20 years of debate in this country on this, the most wicked of public policy problems. If there were an easy solution it would have been found by now. As a public policy nerd—I sat on the Left of the Labor Party and shared in many of the conference debates on this—I've had to accept the lesson the hard way that the policy settings we have in this country have real-world impacts offshore, particularly in the people-smuggling business, and they're factors that we have to take into account in our settings now.

In terms of principles, as the government has said, if there are no security or safety concerns then individuals should be living in the community when they're onshore until a durable solution is found—no ifs, no buts. There is also a small cohort of people for whom there are security concerns, and they will not live in the community. They should not, and I totally reject some of the advocacy we've had from the so-called expert groups. Very well-meaning as they are, it doesn't meet community standards. If people have committed serious crimes and they haven't disclosed them, they're not going to live in the community. We've got to recognise there is a cohort there, small and complex as it is.

We also need to honour our international obligations under the Refugee Convention, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which have to be at the core of our detention regime. There will be a detention regime in certain circumstances, so part of the policy focus has to be to make sure that it's actually done properly according to international law and subject to proper oversight. It is true that under those instruments Australia is not obliged to give a visa to people who engage our protection obligations if compelling national security or public order considerations apply. The fact is, as I touched on at the outset, Australians overall must have confidence and trust in the integrity of the migration system, which does mean border control and support to orderly migration. In that regard, I do think that our platform commitments, which have been touched on, improve the oversight, the transparency, of detention where it is necessary or important.

I acknowledge the minister, who for decades—since you and I met when we were I think about 19 years old, a thousand years ago—has been a consistent champion for fairer, more humane refugee policies. We wouldn't find a stronger, more consistent and compassionate advocate in the parliament than, you, Minister, in implementing and finding this very difficult of balances. (Time expired)

Daniel Mulino (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I begin by thanking the member for Warringah for raising this motion and to echo the words of previous speakers on this side by saying that I suspect this is probably the most serious MPI that most of us have been engaged in. I also thank her for passing on the story of Betelhem and Ismail. As the member for Fraser, my electorate may not be quite as diverse as the member for Bruce's electorate, but I think it would be on the podium. I've heard many similar stories. I haven't met with Betelhem and Ismail, but the stories that she recounted resonated very strongly with me. I feel that during my first term in parliament I've heard many similar stories. Certainly, I've learnt a great deal, and it's informed my approach to the issues that we're dealing with today. These are wickedly complicated issues, but I think we need to listen to people, like the people who have been raised in this debate, if we're going to make humane and sensible decisions.

I'd also like to say, on a broader level, that Fraser is, I believe, a powerful reflection of refugees and the migrant story more generally. The single largest election commitment that I made was $4.7 million for the Vietnamese Museum Australia. That museum, of course, celebrates 110,000 people that came to this country between 1975 and 1995. Many of them—I suspect the vast majority—were refugees, many making perilous journeys. And at the announcement of that investment at the beginning of that project, Ian MacPhee gave a very powerful speech. What, perhaps, was most powerful for me was the fact that politicians from right across the political spectrum paid tribute to him and, in a sense, paid tribute to a previous age. In that sense, I echo the words of the minister, in saying that, as much as we need to grapple with the content of this issue and the wicked complexity of it, we also need to adopt the appropriate tone. That will help us get to the right solutions in the right manner.

It was very powerful for me that there were individuals who I knew well and who are now leaders in my community that had been in refugee camps in the late 1970s and 1980s and remembered Ian Macphee as the minister visiting those camps and, ultimately, making the decision to let them enter this country. Of course, for people at that event, the events in Ukraine resonated very, very powerfully, as I think they have in today's discussion.

I think this is an issue where we should be able to reach across the aisle. We're not always going to agree, and there are clearly elements of how we deal with this policy that people in the government are probably not going to agree on with people on the crossbench, such as our commitment to Operation Sovereign Borders. But there is a great deal that I think we can agree on and work productively on.

I also wanted to make some observations, before we get into some of the detailed policy conundrums, on the fact that, in its platform, Labor is committed to some overarching principles that I think are absolutely critical to this debate. These are that any conditions of detention should reflect the inherent dignity and the safety of the human person. That was something very important to me, as somebody that put a lot of work into the process that led to the platform in the lead up to the last election. Also, of course, that detention is not indefinite or arbitrary. The way that policy operates in practice can often determine whether that is something that works or not. That comes down to issues such as the amount of resourcing that goes into processing. So we have the broad principles that are governing the way in which we want to approach these issues, but in order to have detention that is not indefinite in practice, we need to put more resources into processing people and ensuring that the way in which we treat them is in fact reflective of their inherent dignity and of their safety.

Finally, I would like to reflect the observations of the member who preceded me in this debate, which is that this is a wicked problem. I think many on this side struggle with some of the challenges of balancing our obligations under international conventions with the fact that we are all seeking to find a solution that does not provide an environment or incentives in which people unduly put themselves at risk. As I said, I suspect that people in the government will probably, in general, land on a different position to those opposite, but I very much think that we can all find a common solution, working productively together.

Monique Ryan (Kooyong, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'd like to acknowledge not only the very thoughtful contributions of the government members here today, which I think have been really helpful, but also members of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre who've joined us to listen to us talking about this really important issue.

Firstly, may I note, as the member for Wentworth did, that in early 2019, this parliament achieved something remarkable and historic. Representatives from across the political spectrum voted together, with some of them courageously crossing the floor, to pass Dr Kerryn Phelps's medevac bill to create a pathway for critically sick people held in offshore detention to be evacuated to Australia for urgent medical treatment. A majority of members of this House agreed then that giving medical care to people in Australia's care should not be subjected to political interference and that the provision of that treatment should be determined by doctors. I am a doctor, and I believe the experts who have provided evidence to this parliament on behalf of refugees and asylum seekers when they say that no-one is well after 10 years in offshore detention. The previous coalition government repealed the medevac law as soon as it could. I speak on behalf of the electorate of Kooyong today in support of immediately ending the indefinite detention of refugees. This parliament has an opportunity to end the suffering of the hundreds of people still stranded on Nauru and in Papua New Guinea once and for all.

A recent study into psychological distress in Australian onshore and offshore immigration detention centres found that detaining a person onshore for more than three months resulted in great psychological stress. Those detained offshore showed even greater psychological distress on all time frames. The MSF report Indefinite despair in 2018 showed that, out of 208 refugees and asylum seekers assessed, 62 per cent had moderate or severe depression, 25 per cent had anxiety disorders, 18 per cent had post-traumatic stress disorder and another 22 per cent had depression, complex trauma or trauma withdrawal syndrome.

In the last decade, 46 people have died in Australian detention centres. Assessments of the causes of these tragic deaths cite lack of access to medical care, including mental health care, as a core contributing factor, as well as deplorable living and hygiene conditions and psychological and physical abuse. Twelve people have died while detained in Australian offshore detention centres. Many of these people are losing their lives to easily treatable disorders such as sepsis.

Australia's immigration detention regime causes severe and widespread mental and physical health impacts on people seeking refuge or asylum in this country. I appeal to other doctors in this chamber to join Dr Sophie Scamps and me in our calls to bring the people detained offshore here to Australia, to safety. I urge the government and every member of this chamber to end the financial and moral black hole of offshore detention.

Peta Murphy (Dunkley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to start by doing what many contributors to this debate have done: thanking everyone for the way they have contributed to the debate. I acknowledge that everyone who has spoken—and most people in this chamber—finds this issue to be a complex, heart-rending and incredibly difficult issue to have to deal with, but they come at it with a deep intention to try to make decisions that are the best for people in circumstances where those decisions are really hard and people aren't going to agree on the decisions.

I also want to say, hand on heart, that I am incredibly proud to be in this parliament and in a government with this minister. The newer members of the crossbench and the government—and, I guess, even the opposition—probably understand that this was the case but haven't experienced what debates about this topic have been like in this parliament previously. It is a monumental change for this parliament to have a minister respond to a matter of public importance like the one that the member for Warringah put up by being thoughtful—not by pretending that all of the decisions of the government are going to be ones that everyone in this parliament agrees with but by being thoughtful, putting a hand out for cooperation and acknowledging the fundamental humanity of people who are seeking asylum. It is a huge change that we should all be grateful for.

I want to start the rest of my contribution with this observation: I was 25 years old and working in this parliament in 2001, so I vividly remember Tampa, September 11 and the children overboard saga. For me personally, that was my awakening to the issues of people seeking asylum and how they can be weaponised politically. I assure you it's something I have never forgotten.

It has to be said that that moment in time in 2001, when the Howard government misled the Australian people by telling them that desperate people seeking asylum in Australia had thrown their children overboard from the boat they were in, when they absolutely had not, sowed the seeds for the destructive, inhumane political weaponisation of desperate people that we have seen for the two decades since. It was an act of political opportunism and of willingness to use the plight of desperate people for political gain that has reverberated through our society. Until this point, it has also made it impossible to have a thoughtful, considered debate on the competing and complex issues about how we deal with people seeking asylum, particularly those who are seeking asylum outside of what are known to be the normal processes. But we do have to have it, and we do have to have it in the way we've had it today.

Everyone on this side has emphasised, rightly, that our government is absolutely clear that, if there are no security or safety concerns, individuals should be living in the community until a durable solution is finalised. We have been in power for 72 days, which is not that long to make massive changes. We did get the Climate Change Bill 2022 through, hopefully, but I do urge the crossbench to keep the faith about the things the minister has said that we want to do.

I absolutely agree that no human being can be well after 10 years in indefinite detention. I have met and spoken with people who have sought to come to Australia on those horrible, rickety deathtrap boats and people who were dragooned into piloting those boats. No-one does that unless they're desperate. We have to protect the lives of people who would seek such a dangerous journey and we have to be humane in the way we deal with people who get here. I want to be part of that conversation.

Sophie Scamps (Mackellar, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise on the matter of public importance: the need for the government to urgently end the practice of indefinite detention of refugees both offshore and onshore. I'd like to acknowledge the very thoughtful contributions of everyone who has participated in this debate today.

At the outset, I would like to state my support for the member for Clark's Ending Indefinite and Arbitrary Immigration Detention Bill 2021. As a doctor, I have grave concerns over the practice of indefinite and arbitrary detention, which is both a breach of human rights as well as an inhumane and unnecessary practice, one that costs Australian taxpayers billions and puts the physical and mental health of those imprisoned under the scheme in danger.

I welcome the government's thoughts that there will be no indefinite detention offshore for people who do not pose a security or safety risk. A recent freedom of information request revealed that there are over 1,400 people currently being detained in Australia's detention centres. While the average time that people are detained is nearly two years, the average time that asylum seekers wait for an outcome on their visa application is even longer at 925 days. This has to end.

However, we know that many asylum seekers and refugees have been detained for much longer. In fact, it took the detention of Novak Djokovic earlier this year to shine a spotlight on the plight of asylum seekers and refugees, some who had been detained for nearly a decade. Australians all over the country were shocked and horrified that these people had been locked away for years and essentially forgotten about. Imagine being detained for nearly 10 years in a small room, all the time not knowing if you will be sent back to the place you fled and feared for your safety, the prime of your life slipping away, your health and your mental health deteriorating due to a cruel and unfair system that targets you for seeking asylum. I believe our treatment of asylum seekers and refugees is a national shame, or it has been, and we must end the practice of indefinite detention immediately.

Since 2016 there have been at least 2,650 instances of actual or threatened self-harm by people in Australia's detention centres. That is an average of one person every day either thinking about or attempting to take their own life on account of Australia's policy of locking up asylum seekers and refugees. Mehdi Ali, the brave Iranian asylum seeker who used his voice while in detention on Nauru and in Melbourne's Park Hotel to shine a light on Australia's cruel policy, described his detention as a 'complete trauma'. Mehdi Ali told of witnessing a fellow refugee burn himself to death, describing what he saw with these harrowing words:

With my own eyes I witnessed the suicide of one soul destroyed by this island. Death by self-immolation was the worst scene I had watched in my life. This was the new reality for us on Nauru.

The trauma, anxiety, depression, injuries and deaths caused by Australia's inhumane policy of indefinite and arbitrary detention is a stain on the soul of our nation.

During the election campaign, the people of Mackellar told me that the humane treatment of refugees and asylum seekers should be a priority for me and this parliament. My community is standing up to do its bit for refugees. Earlier this year a number of families across Mackellar and the northern beaches opened their home to Ukrainian refugees fleeing Russia's invasion of their country. In fact, my own children, when they saw the scenes from Ukraine on our own TV set, made the plea to me that my husband and I please do something. Since April of this year, we too have opened our home to a displaced Ukrainian family. I have heard directly from them the anguish about needing to leave their home, their family and their friends and start a new life here in Australia.

My community in Mackellar, like many communities around Australia, is showing the way when it comes to proving we do not need to be cruel when it comes to the treatment of refugees. I believe my community is showing the true spirit of the Australian soul. I believe we can do better than locking up refugees and asylum seekers indefinitely. (Time expired)

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

The discussion has now concluded.