David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) | Hansard source

I wish to speak to why we need to refer the Migration Amendment (Prohibiting Items in Immigration Detention Facilities) Bill 2024 to inquiry. This is legislation that Labor opposed when it was twice presented by the opposition under the name of then Minister Peter Dutton. In 2017 and 2020, Labor seemed to have at least some kind of moral compass when it came to migration and people seeking asylum. And why did Labor oppose it, together with the Greens? We had a progressive majority to oppose that legislation in 2017 and 2020, which is the same progressive majority that would be available if Labor still had progressive views, even slightly, on migration and people seeking asylum. But the reason it was opposed in 2017 and 2020 by the same Labor Party that are now presenting it in their own name is this is a vicious attack on the rights of people who are being held in immigration detention. These are people who are being held there not because they've committed any crime or as punishment but by increasingly draconian laws that are holding more and more people in detention.

Why Labor opposed it in 2017 and 2020 and why the Greens opposed it in 2017 and 2020 is for the same reason the Greens are opposing it in 2024, as we're consistent with our principles. The reason why we oppose taking away people's mobile phones while they're in immigration detention—an immigration detention run by some of the most loathsome international corporate bottom feeders you could imagine who globally profit off holding people in detention around the world, including the likes of Serco, who are notorious for human rights abuses—is sometimes mobile phones are the only accountability measure they have. They can take images of the abuse they're suffering. They can talk to journalists and politicians and people outside those hateful institutions that are run by private corporations and designed to be cruel. The mobile phone is their one chance to talk to the outside world and shine at least something of a light on the violence and the abuses of human rights. I think Labor want to take that away because they want to run a secretive immigration detention centre here.

Labor are taking away that accountability measure—that one lifeline that people with no other rights have in these private jails run by global jailing corporations which are notorious for human rights abuses, like Serco—and, in the same legislation, they want to empower those same private corporations to stripsearch detainees without warrants and to put dogs into the detention centres without warrants. They take away the accountability measure and then they add additional human rights abuses in the same legislation—legislation that Labor voted against twice when then minister Dutton and the coalition were in power.

The coalition must be looking at Minister Tony Burke and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. You only get one of these in your lifetime—this combination of people in high office who are willing to give these appalling powers to people in control of detention centres. They're willing to deliver more than the coalition could ever achieve in terms of cruelty and human rights abuses. The coalition are looking at the Labor Party in 2024 and saying, 'Actually, you are meaner, nastier, crueller and even less principled than the coalition.'

Do you want to know why we want to refer this off to an inquiry? It's because it stinks. It's vicious, it's mean and it's nasty. It's a betrayal of any sense of decency and principle, and it's cheap, grubby politics from Labor. If they think they can out-Dutton Dutton, they can think again. This is just the start of it. It should end here.