Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

As a number of my colleagues have remarked, it also gives me no pleasure whatsoever to rise and speak in opposition to the Migration Legislation Amendment (Regional Processing and Other Measures) Bill 2012. I will briefly reflect, as many of us have, on the circumstances that brought us here. In 2010, new Prime Minister Gillard delivered a speech on the question of boat arrivals and expressed the need to protect our way of life. Thereby, she bought entirely into this disingenuous conflation of two completely distinct issues, that of asylum seekers—refugees, people fleeing war, violence, ethnic cleansing in our region or other parts of the world—and border protection, as though these were somehow the same issue.

The conflation of those two issues was very effectively developed and deployed by a former Prime Minister, John Howard, and former immigration minister Philip Ruddock. It has been extraordinary listening to contributions from the other side over the last 24 hours celebrating the fact that 'we are back; we were right and we are here again'. Prime Minister Gillard went on to say, 'I understand the anxiety in the community around boat arrivals' and it is on this foundation that the notion that refugees are a threat to our way of life, and that the anxiety around them is therefore justified, should even be talked up or encouraged. All subsequent Labor and coalition discussion has rested on this policy. The ALP has completely accepted the toxic and inaccurate premise of the debate set by the coalition. The premise goes virtually unchallenged within the public pronouncements of the major parties. It has been left to the Greens to put what seems to us so obvious into the public record.

The ethical thing for the new Prime Minister to have done would have been to show leadership on the issue. I think that is what former Prime Minister Rudd and his frontbench had attempted to do in the moves that they made, when they came to power, to formally and legislatively reject the Pacific solution that was in place. Prime Minister Gillard could have continued down that course and she did not. By validating people's fear of this tsunami, as some coalition MPs have said, of illegal arrivals, this flood of people, the queue jumpers—and we heard that phrase again from the speaker before me—Labor has fallen into the trap predicated on an assumption that not only does the Australian public not know any better but we also cannot know any better. It preaches to a base and, I think, a completely wrong understanding of Australian culture and of the Australian tradition of the fair go. I think it sells us all short.

Senator Ian Macdonald interjecting—

I am going to ignore you, Senator Macdonald, lest I say something that I will regret.

Senator Cash interjecting—