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

It's now been six long years since former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and the Australia Labor Party took the fateful decision to restart the policy of indefinite offshore detention. They announced that policy on 19 July 2013. It's been six long years of torture, cruelty, deprivation and indefinite detention for the thousands of people who were exiled to Manus Island and Nauru under this cruel policy. Today we saw the Australian Prime Minister stand before our country and try to gaslight us—try to deny the truth about what is going on on Manus Island. That gaslighting is as abhorrent as it is dishonest. Contrary to what the Prime Minister claims, and contrary to what the Minister representing the Minister for Home Affairs claimed in this chamber only an hour or so ago, there are people detained on Manus Island. They are detained there, and the Prime Minister holds the key. They cannot leave because of decisions the Prime Minister and Australia's minister for immigration are making. Their lives have been stolen from them by the major political parties in this country. Six long years of their lives have been sacrificed on the altar of political expediency by the LNP and the ALP in this country.

With a single phone call, Prime Minister Morrison could accept the kind and generous offer made by New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. He could ensure that 150 people on Manus Island and Nauru who were exiled there, overwhelmingly, six long years ago could get the freedom and safety they so desperately need and deserve, the freedom and safety that Australia actually committed to providing to refugees when we signed the refugee convention. But Scott Morrison has not done so.