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

What an extraordinary contribution we've just heard from Minister Watt, wringing his hands about how difficult it has been to craft this legislation in the absence of any published reasons from the High Court. Precisely, Minister! It has been difficult, which begs the obvious question: why are you jamming it through in such an unholy rush today? Why are you trampling over hard-won rights and freedoms in this country, rights and freedoms that many Australians have fought and died to protect and enhance through our nation's history, including members of my family, I might add? They fought and died to protect these rights and freedoms, and you come in here in a craven display of political cowardice because you can't stand the heat that's coming from Mr Dutton, the Liberal Party and the Murdoch press.

This is the Tampa debate all over again, and this legislation is Prime Minister Albanese's Tampa moment. Just as John Howard confected an emergency when the MVTampa hove over the horizon, so has the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Dutton, confected an emergency post the High Court decision. Just as the Murdoch press cheered on Mr Howard in his xenophobia back in the days of the Tampa, so has the Murdoch press cheered on Mr Dutton, his confected emergency and his demonisation of refugees, something that he has built a political career on. Just as the Labor Party collapsed in the most craven way imaginable under Mr Howard's pressure when the MV Tampa hove over the horizon, so has Mr Albanese collapsed in the most craven, disgraceful way under pressure from Mr Dutton.

Not only has that pressure driven the Labor Party to legislate in such unseemly haste that we've now got a minister up wringing his hands about how difficult it was to do it so quickly; it's got a lot worse today. We now know that the Labor Party is walking away from its election policy—its clear election policy—that it doesn't support mandatory sentencing. When you read that policy in the Australian Labor Party platform, it actually spells out why Labor doesn't support mandatory sentencing. You know what? They're very good points. They are very good points excellently made by the members of the Labor Party. How would you feel tonight if you were a member of the Australian Labor Party? You would feel gutted, because tonight the political representatives of the Australian Labor Party have sold out to the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Dutton. They haven't only sold themselves out; they've sold out every single member of the Labor Party who agreed on a Labor platform that does not support mandatory sentencing.

Let's make no mistake about what this bill does. This bill makes the minister into someone who can impose arbitrary punishment and arbitrary detention on innocent people: no judge, no jury, just the minister. The minister can insist that people don't leave their home. He can impose a curfew, and I do have a question for Minister Watt: is the minister able under the provisions of this act to impose a 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week curfew on someone? If that is not a power that exists under this act, what is the minimum amount of time in a 24-hour period that the minister will have to allow someone to leave their home? What we're talking about here is home detention. What we're talking about with electronic monitoring is electronic detention. This is command and control, colleagues, brought to you by Mr Dutton and brought to you by the Australian Labor Party, who are too craven and too cowardly to stand up to Mr Dutton and his cheerleaders in the Murdoch press.

So, it's really critical that folks understand what is happening here. The High Court of Australia has made a decision, and it has made a decision quite rightly and, I have to say, in an extremely belated fashion, following a shameful decision by the High Court many, many years ago. The High Court has finally righted that terrible wrong, and they have effectively ruled that people can no longer be held indefinitely in immigration detention on the whim of a minister.

And I want to say this to people: I don't believe that Australians want to live in a country where a politician can impose a sentence of imprisonment, or effective imprisonment, on somebody—not the courts, not a judge, not a jury, but a politician—and at times, up until last week, impose an indefinite sentence of imprisonment on somebody. I believe, and the Greens believe, that Australians respect the rule of law. I and the Greens believe that Australians respect the separation of powers. And do you know what? That's really what the High Court found last week, because that wasn't a decision based on the Migration Act; that was a decision based on this document called the Constitution. Maybe the Liberal Party and the Labor Party have heard of that—the Constitution of our country. The Constitution is very clear that imposing punishment on citizens is the job of the courts, not the job of politicians. That's why I think these amendments, which will almost certainly find themselves in the High Court at some stage in the future, are likely to be struck down.

I cannot recall a government that has allowed itself to be dictated to by an opposition to the degree that we have seen today.

As Senator Hanson-Young is pointing out, Senator Cash is now the one explaining to the chamber what the amendments will be—even though, I might add, those amendments still haven't been circulated, or at least they hadn't been when I got up to begin my contribution.