Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to speak, on behalf of the Australian Democrats, to the Migration (Climate Refugees) Amendment Bill 2007, a bill from Senator Nettle of the Greens. The bill seeks to recognise refugees from climate change induced environmental disasters. The Democrats have long called for Australia to recognise the reality of climate change and, particularly, to recognise the immediate and significant threat that it poses to many Pacific island nations. We have long called for Australia to develop formal mechanisms for enabling us to accommodate people from Pacific island nations who are affected by climate change.

That, I think, is something that we should all agree on. It is very unfortunate that the government speakers have sought to dismiss or avoid that core issue. You might have concerns about the mechanism being put forward; indeed, I have some queries that I would raise about using this mechanism rather than alternative mechanisms, such as those the Democrats and I have put forward in other legislation. But the core principle remains: Australia has obligations, particularly to people from poorer nations, and particularly to people in our own region and Pacific island nations. We have obligations to ensure that, if and when they are affected severely by climate change induced events, or by climate change more broadly, we provide assistance to them—including, if necessary, enabling them to resettle or reside, even on a more temporary basis, within Australia, depending on their circumstances. That should be a simple given. If Australia as a nation could send that simple signal to the Pacific island nations—that we will provide assistance to and opportunities for them to resettle or reside here in the event of these sorts of problems occurring in their home countries as a result of climate change and climate change induced events—that would make a big difference.

We can work out different ways to do that, whether or not we have a formal visa specifically for that purpose, as is proposed in this legislation. I am not convinced from Senator Patterson’s contribution that she has actually read how this proposed visa would work and the way it would interrelate with existing programs. But this legislation seeks to introduce a specific class of visa known as a climate change refugee visa. Should we do it via that mechanism, as a specific, discrete visa? Or should we do it via a mechanism that I think would work better, which is to use the broader mechanism of a complementary protection visa, which takes into account wider humanitarian circumstances—into which climate change induced disasters would clearly fit? Or should we do it through a much more flexible arrangement with regard to entry rights for people from particular Pacific island nations across the board, without having to establish more defined and constrained humanitarian criteria?

I think there are arguments for all of those approaches. I lean towards the second and third models rather than the model that is put forward in this bill. But I think that just to slag off the whole concept not only is unfair but also sends a poor signal to our Pacific island neighbours—who already, in many cases, are less than impressed with the attitude of the Australian government to climate change as a whole and to what sort of assistance we may provide to people from these island nations as they are more severely affected by climate change.

Let us not kid ourselves: this will occur, whether it occurs via a one-off related environmental disaster or through cumulative reduction in liveable areas and arable land. Either way—and probably both ways—these islands not only are going to be affected but, according to some reports, are already being affected. I draw the Senate’s attention to a report by Kathy Marks which was published in a number of newspapers around the world. I think it was originally published in the Independent, in the UK, in July of this year. I have a version that was in the New Zealand Herald of 21 July which talks about Tuvalu.

One of the issues with the model that is put forward in the Greens legislation that I think needs to be recognised, regarding the eligibility requirement for a climate change refugee visa, is that the legislation gives to the minister the power to determine whether or not something is a climate change induced environmental disaster. It also puts some requirements on the minister as to what the minister has to take into account with regard to the disaster, and it gives that power to the minister alone. In response to some of the criticisms Senator Patterson was making, I say that it actually enables the minister to set a limit on the number of climate change refugee visas that are issued pursuant to each declaration. So, if anything, it is actually too broad. A minister who had the mindset that Senator Patterson has just outlined would just put the limit at zero, and then we would not have any problem with all the other issues she has raised.

Obviously, in any circumstance, what is stated here is a criterion for a climate change refugee visa. The criterion is that the person must have been displaced as a result of a climate change induced environmental disaster. Whilst I hope no-one in this chamber any longer disputes that climate change is a reality, we all know that it is difficult to specifically state that any individual disaster can be clearly seen to be a result of climate change. Certainly it is difficult to demonstrate it in a legal sense, as opposed to it being a reasonable assumption for somebody to make based on the available scientific evidence.

The mechanism’s intent is welcome, but it could potentially be quite easily circumvented by a government that was not interested in using this visa. That is why I think the Democrats’ model, outlined in legislation I proposed last year regarding a complementary protection visa, is better. Complementary protection visas involve a wider group of people than the narrow definition of ‘refugee’ under the refugee convention. They are defined in the Democrats’ legislation as people who would face a substantial threat to their personal security, human dignity or human rights if they were to return to their country of origin. It is normally in circumstances where they are under some other, wider threat that does not fit within the narrow constraints of the refugee convention. It can also be for severe humanitarian reasons, which can include natural disasters. It enables that flexibility to be there. It does not require it to be clearly linked to climate change per se; it can just be related to a deterioration in circumstances in a particular country which make it no longer liveable for a certain group of people. It could be in response to a specific disaster which it would be reasonable to assume is linked to climate change, but it does not need to have that link demonstrated in any legal sense. I think that is a better way to go.

I also take issue with a couple of other things that Senator Patterson said. It is frustrating, disappointing and very tiresome to continue to hear the regurgitating of dishonest propaganda by the government. They continually use phrases like ‘illegal immigrants’. Again, when we are talking about people who are, and have been demonstrated to be, genuine refugees fleeing very serious and real persecution, their mode of arrival is irrelevant. It is certainly not illegal, and it is simply false to call them ‘illegal immigrants’. For someone who is a former parliamentary secretary in this area to be using such terminology is a sign of how deeply ingrained the government’s propaganda mantras have become in the consciousness of those who are forced to have to defend the indefensible approach of the persecution by our government of people who are fleeing persecution by other governments.

The notion that you can just say that refugees cost so many dollars per person is typical of the narrow, bean-counting Treasury mindset that has been used to try and create a negative attitude towards refugees. Of course, there are some costs involved in resettlement programs, but in any of the costings I have seen there is never any recognition of the contribution that people make, even in those initial periods when they are settling. There is some recognition that, after a few years, when people do get settled and established, they start making more immediate, clear-cut and definable economic contributions. But there is much more to the contribution that people, including refugees, make than just the tax take we get from their paying income tax, and those very narrow, dollars-and-cents measures.

Refugees have provided immense benefit to Australia in all sorts of ways, far beyond just counting how much it costs to have them in our health system versus how much tax money we get from their income and other mechanisms. It is typical of that clearly misrepresentative approach and the absurdly narrow and therefore misleading costing criteria that are used as a way to skew our migration and humanitarian intake towards business and skilled migrants, and people with stacks of money, and away from people in the family and humanitarian areas. Of course, you get more money immediately from people who are coming here to fill job vacancies in the skilled area, but the other, wider benefits should not be discounted.

Let me also emphasise, given that we are having debates in this place at the moment about the importance of citizenship and of people engaging in and becoming full members of the Australian community, that the evidence is clear-cut: the one group of people who become citizens most quickly, who are most keen to engage fully with Australia and all of its responsibilities, are refugees. Many of the people who come here under other visas and who are here as permanent residents for decades do not become citizens. That is fine; that is their right. But it is an indication of the different types of contributions people make and how you cannot just pull this all back to narrow, dollars-and-cents measures.

Returning to the article by Kathy Marks that I spoke about, from the Independent and the New Zealand Herald, it goes into quite a lot of detail about the very severe environmental impact that is already occurring in Tuvalu. Most Tuvaluans live just one to two metres above sea level. Whilst the article says that there is not enough data to establish a definitive trend, the data that is around does suggest possibly a half-a-metre rise in the next century. That does not mean they can just move another half a metre up the hill. There are no hills. Most of Tuvalu is not much higher than a few metres above sea level. It is not just about people standing on an island and the water slowly rising up until it hits their ankles and then their knees. It is about the vulnerability of islands so that they are unable to withstand severe weather events.

The article describes an islet that has already been lost in Tuvalu. It talks about the lagoon around Funafuti, a town in Tuvalu that used to have seven islets around its lagoon; now there are six. One of them has already been wiped out via a series of cyclones towards the end of the last century. It was sufficiently strong that it stripped off the vegetation. That meant the sand and soil were no longer held in place and got washed away. All that is left is a bit of rubble that is visible at low tide. Is that specifically caused by climate change? Who can specifically demonstrate that? But when you have that in combination with clear evidence of rising sea levels, clear evidence of more severe weather events and an obvious vulnerability, it is pretty clear that you do not have to quibble about whether it is 80 per cent climate change induced or 30 per cent. Whatever it is, some of these islands are already in serious trouble.

It also means that land that might have been arable at one stage becomes less so, or not usable at all for growing any sorts of crops or food. It can mean water tables become saline. It is not just about the land slowly becoming inundated. The evidence is clear, as that article shows, that this is already a serious problem.

There is an issue with using the title of ‘climate change refugee visa’. I do not mean this particularly as a criticism of the legislation, but it is one of the problems we face in this area and it is one thing the government has used to dismiss calls by many people, including the Democrats, for Australia to recognise its responsibility to take in climate change refugees. In the day-to-day parlance of the word ‘refugees’ it is completely appropriate. We all know what we mean when we talk about climate change refugees: we mean that people who have been affected by climate change can no longer live where they are, or not enough of them can, or the available land can no longer manage that level of population, and they need to flee. We all recognise that, but putting it in law under the label of ‘refugees’ means linking the concept to that of the refugee convention, and the simple fact is that it does not fit within the definition of the refugee convention.

The definition in the refugee convention—which is actually quite narrow, despite what you would believe if you heard some of the propaganda and rhetoric around the place—is that a person must have a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion and is unable to return, or so fearful that they are unwilling to return, to that country. You could probably stretch it to say that you are a member of a particular social group that is affected by climate change induced disaster, but I think that is stretching it further than is helpful. We all use the terminology, as we did when the tsunami occurred in Indonesia, of people being refugees from that disaster. We use it in the general day-to-day sense, but they would not, in my view, fit under the definition in the refugee convention. I do not think you could say they are members of a particular social group; they are residents of a particular location. I think also you would really be stretching it to say that they are not able to return because of a fear of persecution. They are not able to return because of humanitarian circumstances–their lands wiped out, their homes gone, no food or whatever it might be. The complementary protection mechanism is a better one because it has a much broader humanitarian component to it.

In my view Australia should take a much more liberal approach—’liberal’ in the true sense of the word, not in the totally bastardised sense of the word that we have had to swallow in this country by virtue of having the most illiberal party ever in government having the name Liberal attached to it; in the proper sense of the word ‘liberal’—to the ability of people from at least some Pacific island nations to be able to enter Australia. This is the reality in New Zealand, where a number of Pacific island nations have much freer entry rights, as we in Australia have in our partnership with New Zealand. There is a very valid case for considering trialling and potentially adopting such measures with Pacific island nations. We do not have anywhere near as strong links as we should. We do not have anywhere near strong enough a recognition of the realities of Pacific island nations.

Many of these nations are places that are not large in numbers of people. It would assist us to strengthen the ties and connections that we should have with the Pacific region and that tend to get totally and appallingly ignored in public debate and awareness and in political debate. It is my personal view—it is probably not a party position—that we should be looking very proactively at loosening the constraints on people from at least some Pacific island nations to be able to more easily enter and reside in Australia under various circumstances.

I have spoken in this place before about the Senate inquiry report that examined whether or not to allow Pacific island labourers into Australia under specific, confined circumstances and about the benefits that that could provide to economies in Pacific islands. I think we could explore more of those sorts of things. Whilst there is a genuine risk of climate change induced disasters—and we need to recognise our obligations there—there are wider difficulties in the Pacific islands, and they have got bigger problems than just climate change. Let us not kid ourselves: climate change is one of the threats to the economies of these nations. One of the ways we can assist them significantly in economic terms is to enable them to more fully connect with the Australian economy as people and as individuals. It would be valuable for them economically, and I believe it would be valuable for us socially, culturally, politically and economically. That is a wider call beyond the climate change issue, but if there were much freer scope for people to reside here it would also then reduce the need to try to find mechanisms like this. Obviously, if their home became unliveable for whatever reason they would have that opportunity in Australia and New Zealand. I think that would help bind the whole region together— (Time expired)