Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Home Affairs and Integrity Agencies Legislation Amendment Bill 2017. As colleagues would know, this bill establishes the Home Affairs portfolio and seeks to give effect to the allocation of ministerial powers following the establishment of the new Home Affairs department. It amends the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006, the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor Act 2010, the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Act 1986 and the Intelligence Services Act 2001. The majority of changes to establish the Home Affairs portfolio have been made through amendments to the Administrative Arrangements Order. This bill addresses specific matters that could not be dealt with without legislation.

When it was announced in July last year that this super-sized department of Australia's security and immigration agencies would occur, and be led by Minister Peter Dutton, I said at the time that this would move Australia closer to being a police state. I stand by those comments. This is a dangerous proposal, a dangerous move by government, and it continues Australia's walk ever more rapidly down the road to authoritarianism.

The Australian Greens will be opposing this bill. The government has abjectly failed to give satisfactory reasons for the changes, and these changes have not been recommended by any review. The government is engaged in a thought bubble here, and I have no doubt that it is being led by the Minister for Home Affairs, Mr Dutton. I note that the government is proposing amendments to this bill, based on recommendations from the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. Amendments (16), (17) and (19) implement recommendation 1 of the first report by ensuring that only the Prime Minister may request the Inspector-General to undertake certain inquiries under section 9 of the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Act 1986. The Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, the Hon. Margaret Stone, had deep concerns regarding the initial proposal that would have given the Attorney-General the same powers as the Prime Minister to compel the Inspector-General to undertake an inquiry. The Greens won't be opposing the government's amendments. I also note that Senator Patrick, on behalf of the Centre Alliance, has proposed an amendment relating to the oversight of intelligence agencies. The Greens will be supporting Senator Patrick's amendment.

The creation of the new home affairs department is one of the clearest examples of this government's ongoing attempts to change Australia's culture and to turn Australia into a more closed and frightened place. They are doing this for a reason. They are doing it because they know, through careful study of history, that, if you can scare people enough, more and more of them will acquiesce to the erosion of their fundamental rights and freedoms, purportedly to support national security measures. This government, and previous governments of both political stripes, have deliberately set out to create fear in the hearts and minds of the Australian people, with the intent of lessening opposition to the ongoing erosion of fundamental rights, freedoms and civil liberties in this country. The Australian Greens will fight this all the way. This move, the creation of the home affairs department, is something that will reshape Australia's entire immigration, intelligence and security framework to become more hostile, suspicious and secretive.

Some Labor MPs have expressed concern about the concentration of too much power in Mr Dutton's hands, but what's missing from Labor is a commitment to reverse these changes. We haven't heard the Labor Party say that they oppose the creation of the Department of Home Affairs, and we have not heard the Labor Party say that, if they win government at the next election, they will reverse the changes. That is what we need to hear Labor say. I listened carefully to Labor's contribution in the House yesterday and the contribution from Senator McAllister today, and we have not heard Labor say that these changes will be reversed.

In addition to Australia's immigration, intelligence and security systems becoming more hostile, suspicious and secretive, we have a minister, Mr Dutton, who has continually shown that he cannot be trusted to responsibly exercise the powers he already has, yet the creation of the home affairs department and this enabling legislation simply concentrates more power into the hands of Mr Dutton. I place very firmly on the record that the Australian Greens do not trust Mr Dutton to responsibly exercise the new authority and concentration of powers he will have. We've seen his track record in Australia's offshore detention system on Manus Island and Nauru. I've been to Manus Island many times and seen with my own eyes, and felt with my own heart, the harm that is being caused to innocent people, deliberately, by the Australian government—with bipartisan support from the opposition, I might add. The human cost and the human misery on Manus Island—which I know of through my direct experience there—and, I have no doubt, the equal harm being done to people on Nauru, the equal human cost and the equal misery, show very clearly indeed that we are right not to trust Mr Dutton with the extra concentration of powers that the creation of the Department of Home Affairs has afforded him.

At stake here is far more than the administrative arrangements or which minister sits in front of which Senate estimates committee. This is nothing other than an attempt to use state apparatus to erode fundamental rights and freedoms, to change the nature of Australia and to rebuild it in line with Mr Dutton's fears and prejudices. The net effect of these changes is a department that is technically responsible for national security and immigration and resettlement—but I note that it is outsourcing and deprioritising the latter function.

In the budget last night, we saw tens of millions of dollars stripped away from refugee supports in this country and an extension of waiting times for refugees to access crucial and critical government services. Again this government shows its lack of heart, its lack of compassion, its lack of basic human dignity, not only in this bill but in the budget that was presented last night. Remember, last year Minister Dutton tried to change citizenship laws in this country to force people to wait longer before they could make applications to become citizens, to speak university-level English before they could become citizens and to sit patronising values tests before they could call themselves Australians. These changes, which the Greens led the charge to ultimately defeat in the Senate last year, came as hundreds of citizenship-processing staff were being sacked by the department. Consequently, people are now waiting far, far longer than previously before their applications for citizenship are processed. This is not a coincidence. Mr Dutton demands loyalty from potential citizens and in turn treats potential citizens with utter contempt. More recently, the government has massively increased the amount of money that people have to own before they can sponsor a relative to come to Australia. This will have the effect of restricting family reunions to the well-off and is ultimately a cut to migration by stealth.

We have a minister who has a history of dishonesty and a history of utter disrespect and contempt for basic human rights and utter contempt for the rule of law. Those things make him completely unfit to sit at the top of such a powerful national security agency as the Department of Home Affairs. He has overseen a regime of deliberate brutality on Manus Island and Nauru. He has denied the people he has detained the chance to rebuild their shattered lives, not just in Australia but in New Zealand. He has tried to deprive suicidal children of badly needed psychiatric care in Australia. He repeatedly acts outside or beyond his powers to deport people, and, when his decisions are overturned by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal or the courts, he lashes out at the AAT and the judiciary. His latest pot shot at the judiciary shows an alarming contempt for the rule of law. His suggestion of public reflection is a step towards the direct election of judges—an alarming proposition—in this country. Judges and magistrates should be independent experts in the law, not populist politicians. Again, this suggestion is a dangerous erosion of the rule of law, and ultimately the Prime Minister needs to bring his out-of-control minister to heel.

To put it bluntly, Mr Dutton doesn't like judges because he is sick of being held to account by our courts. At every turn, he's sought an expansion of powers, which has been opposed only at the very outside margins by Labor, if at all, to increase the powers of security agencies to surveil, to interrogate and to deport people. All of these changes are happening at a whirlwind pace. The dust has barely settled on the newly created Australian Border Force, and it is long past time for reflection on what the purpose and scope of Australia's Immigration Department should be.

If we want to see what a home affairs department will look like in action, the treatment of a Biloela family in March gives us a frightening vision. A mother, a father and their two young daughters had their home raided in the pre-dawn hours by Border Force, police and Serco security guards. They were told they had 10 minutes to pack up their things, before they were bundled into vans and locked up in an immigration detention centre in Melbourne, where they remain to this day. This is frightening stuff—frightening stuff indeed. Everything about this scenario—the combination of private and public security forces, the dawn raid only a matter of hours after a visa had expired and the complete lack of basic compassion—is the product of a department and a minister that are unrecognisable from just a short decade ago. This country is walking ever more rapidly down the road to authoritarianism and totalitarianism, and Mr Dutton's consolidation of power is central to that.

Time after time this government demonstrates its disregard and contempt for the rule of law—and that is one of the early warning signs of fascism. We are in a very dangerous period in our country's history. We are sleepwalking down a dangerous pathway. The creation of the home affairs department is a significant step down that dangerous pathway and will be fought and opposed all the way by the Australian Greens. It's a shame that Labor have decided to support this bill. I'm very disappointed in the Labor Party for doing this. They had a chance here to stand up against this concentration of powers, to stand up against this ongoing erosion of fundamental rights and freedoms in this country, but yesterday and today they have squibbed it.

We need to move away from expanding government powers, from increasing the concentration of government powers. We need to be wary about the loss of privacy that citizens are facing, the massive increase in the surveillance state, and, ultimately, we need to start building into our legislative framework protections for people's fundamental rights. That is why we need a charter of rights in this country. We are the only liberal democracy in the world that does not have some form of charter or bill of rights either in our statute books or in our Constitution. This lack of a charter of rights is part of the reason the government are able to get away with the changes they are proposing today.

Concentrations of power, like the one this government has engaged in with the creation of the home affairs department, are extremely dangerous. They can lead to a reduction in accountability, reductions in transparency and reductions in the contestability of decisions—and, ultimately, that is bad news for Australian citizens who value fundamental rights, freedoms and liberties in this country. This move by the government, disappointingly supported by the Labor Party, will be opposed all the way by the Australian Greens. What we need to hear from Labor is a commitment to reverse these changes and, disappointingly, we have heard anything but.

Debate interrupted.