David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The motion is that this bill proceed without formalities, and let's be clear what we're dealing with here. We're dealing with the Migration Amendment (2026 Measures No. 1) Bill 2026. This bill is designed to give the home affairs minister pretty much an open discretion, not subject to parliamentary oversight, to stop people who have a valid visa to enter Australia from coming—to put them in the deep freeze for six months.

It's been said by the government—by Labor, the coalition and One Nation—that they want to come together to rush this legislation through and do it without formalities. What does 'without formalities' mean? This is a bill that was rushed through the other place in barely 24 hours. It was warm from the photocopier when they voted on it downstairs. It's not gone to public consultation. It hasn't even sat the usual five days on the Notice Paper before it proceeds. Having been rushed through in the other place, with a guillotine vote from the government to ram it through, it has then been introduced here without formalities.

The government will say, 'Oh, no, we had an inquiry on this.' I was in that inquiry. The inquiry last night was initiated with barely three hours notice, no public submissions were received and no stakeholders were invited to contribute to the inquiry. We had almost no notice and an hour and a half to ask Home Affairs questions about the bill. What did we find out about the bill in that rushed, pretend, faux inquiry that we had? We found out that the government clearly intends to use this rushed legislation to shut the door to 7,200 Iranians who currently have valid visas to come to this country—tourism visas, business visas, perhaps some future spouse visas or family reunion visas, maybe grandparents coming out to see their grandkids. They have been vetted and screened by Home Affairs, and they have legitimate reasons to come to this country.

Do you know what? Yesterday, when the government introduced this bill, the Labor Party opened their media for the day by putting out, effectively, photo opportunities and by running the emotional argument that the Minister for Home Affairs had granted five emergency humanitarian visas to some of the brave Iranian women footballers who have been in this country and potentially face persecution if they return—not just persecution from their own regime; if they're sent back to Iran, they could literally be killed by US bombs or Israeli bombs. Thankfully, five brave Iranian women, who have shown such courage, were saved from that fate. They were saved from that fate because of an urgent application and an urgent resolution so that they could have a humanitarian visa to stay in this country. Since then, another member of the team has been saved from that fate.

Of course those brave Iranian women should have been protected, and of course I am so glad—and I think I am joined by millions of Australians—that those Iranian women have had the chance to apply for a humanitarian visa and be given protection by this country. But you know what? To Labor's utter shame, on the very same day they did that they brought legislation into this parliament—cheered on by their mates in the war parties coalition of Labor, the coalition and One Nation—that they want to ram through without formalities in the other place and want to ram through without formalities here to literally shut the door on 7,200 other Iranians who have valid visas to come to this country. Why are they doing it? Why are they shutting the door on those 7,200? Because they don't want any of those Iranians to come here and do exactly what the Iranian women's football team have done and make an application onshore to be granted asylum and to be granted protection.

Having done the photo opportunity with the Iranian women footballers, having run the media in the morning about Labor coming out and protecting this handful of brave Iranian women, they used the smokescreen of that to, that same day, shut the door to 7,200 other Iranians. You couldn't get more obvious, base hypocrisy than we got from Labor in doing that. To be clear, on the exact process that the Iranian women footballers went through onshore—able to make an application for asylum and granted asylum—Labor said, 'Okay, we've done that for six, but no more.' To the other 7,200 Iranians, who otherwise could have come to this country and made a claim onshore, they say, 'Absolutely not,' shutting the door.

As you would expect, the three war parties in this place—Labor, the coalition and One Nation—all support the war, this illegal war, and its bombing and killing, which is creating much of the grief and the fear in Iran, together with a brutal regime of course. Having supported the war to create the crisis, all three of the war parties are now supporting Labor ramming this legislation through. We have a very real fear—as does the refugee sector and those Australians across the country who expect more from the government—that Labor, the coalition and One Nation are going to join together tomorrow to guillotine this legislation and ram it through without debate, like they're no doubt going to shut down this debate as soon as I sit down. They'll shut down this debate so that anyone who doesn't agree with the three war parties, and their toxic mixture of global organised violence led by Donald Trump and global organised bastardry against people seeking asylum, can't make a contribution on this bill. That's what's going to happen as sure as night follows day.

So what I say on behalf of my party, the Greens, and on behalf of the millions of Australians who are looking at the disaster in Iran; the disaster in the Middle East; the conflict spilling over the borders; the hundreds of thousands of people in Lebanon who have been made homeless because of yet another vicious, illegal attack by Israel; the hundreds killed in Beirut and southern Lebanon; the thousands killed in Iran and the thousands more injured; and the more than a hundred schoolgirls who were killed by a US missile strike in the first 24 hours of the illegal, brutal war that Labor, the coalition and One Nation support—the Greens say, in part to give voice to those millions of Australians who want a different country and a different world, that we're not going to let this be guillotined and rammed through without any scrutiny or debate.

We see you. Again, we see you. We see the three of you—Labor, the coalition and One Nation—coming up with your plans to be cruel to people who have come here to seek asylum and coming up with your plans to back in the US forever wars, and in this moment doing them both together. You support the illegal war. You support the bombing and the killing in Iran, and then, when you think: 'Oh, my goodness. That might actually create refugees. That might create people who need protection from the bombing and killing,' which you actually support and endorse, you say: 'Australia is not going to give anyone protection. We'll just revert to cruelty mode A,' which is your standard operating procedure. Labor had a choice at this moment.

An appalling humanitarian catastrophe started in the region with another US illegal war—an Israeli illegal war, the attacks on a Iran, the attacks on Lebanon. We knew that there would be thousands and thousands displaced. In fact, Labor knows that there are likely to be thousands of Iranians applying for asylum if they can come into this country and apply for asylum under their visas. So what Labor could have done was look back into history—