Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Jacqui Lambie Network) Share this | Hansard source

I want to talk about the Murugappan family from Biloela. Before I start, let me say this: I'm not a bleeding heart. The courts have decided that Priya and Nades aren't owed protection as refugees. They fled a civil war; that's no longer a civil war. Wrongly or rightly, that's what our system has found. They came to Australia without valid visas. They claimed asylum and were found not to be owed asylum, so they're without valid visas. If their youngest daughter isn't granted protection, none of the people in the family will have a legal claim to stay in Australia.

That's what the law says, in black and white. The letter of the law is crystal clear here. But there's a part of that law that allows the minister for immigration to use his or her discretion when it comes to decisions like this. It's a power that, when there's a clash between what the law says and what common sense would tell you, the minister's got the chance to use some common sense. Surely now is one of those times, because, if you stick to the absolute letter of the law, you're threatening to send two little kids home to a country they've never been to. You're deporting two little kids from a country they've lived in all their lives to a country they've never even seen and telling them they're home. That's what the law would have you do.

I had to resign from parliament in 2017 because I was found to have dual citizenship with Scotland. I've never been to Scotland, and, if you asked me to shut up shop here in Australia, ship off and live in Scotland and never come back, I'd be lost. I wouldn't know where to start. I'd feel like what was being asked of me wasn't fair. Here's a country I've lived in all my life, I've paid my taxes in, I've grown up in; I've served it in uniform and I've represented my state in its federal parliament, and now that country is telling me to go home—home to a country I've never called home. It wasn't my choice where my dad was born. For those two girls, it wasn't their choice either. You don't choose your parents. Those girls didn't choose their parents, and I don't know how you can look those two girls in the eye and say, 'Hey, sorry, sweethearts. It's nothing personal, it's not your fault, but there's no home here for you.'

Priya and Nades are not owed our protection, but just because we don't owe them this little bit of mercy doesn't mean we can't offer it to them. When you give something away and it's not out of obligation, that's what you call generosity. That's the Australian way. We have the ability to be extremely generous here, not because we have to—just because it's the decent thing, it's the decent Australian thing, to do.

And it's not going to restart the people-smuggling trade. That is absolute rubbish! God, if I hear that once more, look out! What kind of message are we frightened of sending—that, if we show a little bit of kindness, a little bit of the Australian way, to this family, then other people will look at that and go, 'I'll sign up for the same'? They'll all make the life-threatening trip across the ocean in a sinking boat. They'll all arrive in Australia, try and put down some roots, get put in detention and get put in detention in another place. They'll all sign up to be left there until their own child's blood turns to poison in their veins. Even if you believed that, even if all that were true and people were signing up to a deal just like that in droves, they'd still have to invent a time machine, or bring in Doctor Who and the TARDIS, and come here before 2013!