Linda Reynolds (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

But we cannot afford to say that the war against people smuggling is over. Today there are at least 14,000 people still in the people-smuggling pipeline which stretches all the way from the Middle East through to Indonesia. They are waiting for a signal to start getting back on the boats. We cannot save many of these people's lives; we cannot afford to put the people smugglers back in business; and we cannot let them take the chance of arriving here or at least surviving the trip at all.

The government's regional processing cohort bill, and in particular section 46A (2AA) does provides the necessary legislation to mitigate, stop and deter people smugglers from further endangering the lives of these men, and women. The bill is further confirmation of the government's commitment to: ensuring and maintaining border protection; ensuring the integrity of our migration system; and ultimately, by these amendments, ensuring that the people smugglers' trade in human misery cannot not happen again.

This legislation, somewhat inconveniently for those opposite, is also entirely consistent with former Prime Minister Rudd's statement on 19 July 2013 that:

Any asylum seeker who arrives in Australia by boat will have no chance of being settled in Australia as refugees.

That is a very unequivocal statement. He did not provide any caveats at the time in case people in the future want to come back as tourists or anything else. It was a very clear statement:

Any asylum seeker who arrives in Australia by boat will have no chance of being settled in Australia as refugees.

Minister Dutton, in his second reading speech in this bill, said this:

These policies and practices were not developed from a basis of fear—how could they be, because more than one in four Australian residents were born overseas and close to half of the population have at least one parent born elsewhere. Immigrants and their descendants are foundational to Australia's human capital and social fabric.

This bill does introduce a statutory bar preventing certain non-citizens who were taken to a regional processing country from making a valid application for a visa to visit or remain in Australia.

Contrary to media reports overnight and again today, the bill's explanatory memorandum also clearly addresses—and I think satisfactorily—the human rights matters. The first of these is this:

The measures proposed in the bill are compatible with human rights. Any limitations the rights of persons in the designated regional processing cohort are reasonable, necessary and proportionate to achieving the legitimate aim of maintaining the integrity of Australia's lawful migration programs and discouraging hazardous boat journeys.

It is also important to note these other points about human rights. Like many of the other sections within the current Migration Act and regulations, the minister has discretion and flexibility to lift the exclusion if it is in the public interest to do so. This consideration could occur in circumstances involving Australia's human rights obligations towards families and children, allowing a valid application for a visa on a case-by-case basis and in consideration of the individual circumstances of the case, including the best interests of affected children. This ban only applies to those who are at least 18 years of age on the first or only occasion after 19 July 2013 when taken to a regional processing country.

Additionally, this bill does not limit the ability of the minister to grant a visa to a person in detention and, combined with the minister's ability to allow a visa application to be made, will allow a person in the affected cohort to be considered in the same way as other unlawful non-citizens. That is, and it is critically important, the person will be maintained in detention only where there is a risk to the safety of the Australian community.

These amendments send a strong message to people smugglers that they have no product to sell, and those considering paying people smugglers to travel here illegally by boat they will never ever have the false hope of setting foot in Australia. There are no easy policy solutions in dealing with people smugglers; there are only the best of the bad ones. But implementing policies that give false hope and lead to heinous deaths at sea—is never a policy I will support. (Time expired)