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

So the motion here is that this bill proceed without formalities, which is to cut out the public scrutiny and the parliamentary scrutiny of this. Why does Labor want no scrutiny, and why are they being joined by the coalition and One Nation? Why do the three war parties want no scrutiny? Why do they want to proceed without formalities? Because, when you lift the hood, look in and actually see what this bill is doing, it exposes the three war parties for what they are. It shows that Labor, the coalition and One Nation all have the same pattern. They all take the same approach in moments of crisis like this.

What Labor could have done, instead of trying to ram through this legislation, cut out the public and go to base-A cruelty to try and outflank One Nation in their race baiting and Islamophobia, is look back at what Bob Hawke did at the time of another international crisis. At the time of the Tiananmen Square massacre in China, there were tens of thousands of Chinese students in this country. Back then, Bob Hawke saw a humanitarian crisis and knew that it would be wrong to send people back into China, and he extended the refugee and humanitarian intake. Twenty thousand to 30,000 largely young Chinese students were given a chance to make a life in this country and were saved from being sent back to a regime that was likely to persecute them. He lifted the humanitarian intake for that year. That was an opportunity that Labor could have looked at. They could have looked to the example from 1989 and said, 'Actually, do you know what? There's a shred of decency in our past. We'll look to that decency and we'll make this moment a decent moment.' They could have lifted the humanitarian numbers by 7,200 to give those Iranians the same chance that we gave Chinese students in 1989.

But, instead of looking to Bob Hawke and instead of looking to that example of humanity and decency, Labor decided to look across the Pacific to Donald Trump and look at what he does with migrants—with Iranians who had come to the US seeking asylum. He'd been putting them on planes and sending them back to Iran in November, December and as late as January. That's what your mate Donald Trump has been doing. He's been sending Iranians back into Iran, knowing that they've made claims for protection in the United States. He's been sending them back into the regime. Having sent those Iranians back, you are joining Donald Trump in supporting the bombing and killing of them.

You had a choice. Labor had a choice, right? They could have looked to an example of decency and humanity, or they could have taken Donald Trump's war, killing, brutal, racist approach, and they chose Donald Trump. You chose the racism. In this case, you chose Islamophobia. You chose to try and make One Nation your mate at the expense of 7,200 Iranians who had visas who could have had the chance to come here for a life free from violence and persecution—free from your mate Donald Trump's bombs, free from your mate Benjamin Netanyahu's bombs, free from the killing. You could have given them that chance, and you chose not to.

I said before that we see you and we see how you act, with the coalition, trying to out-bastard One Nation time after time. We see you, and, increasingly, the Australian public sees you. And this country, the core heartbeat of this country, is so much better than you—so much better than any of you in the three war parties. Our country wants peace. Our country wants to see the world as a place we engage with on principles. They want our neighbours to be not our enemies but our friends, our colleagues and our workmates. That's the world that I think the core beating heart of Australia wants, and, every time you do this, you betray those core Australian values.