Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

This Iranian visa ban is a new low from this Labor government, who, on refugee rights, just keep revealing themselves to be morally bankrupt. How cynical is it that, all week, Minister Burke has painted himself as a hero for, rightly, providing asylum to a handful of Iranian young women who've distinguished themselves on the soccer field while at the same time shutting the door on thousands more—on 7,200 other Iranian visa holders—who already have the legal right to use that visa and to come here. This government, with these laws today—that have bipartisan support, that are going to be rushed through—are shutting the door on thousands more. I guess after 15 years I should be a bit more cynical, but this, frankly, is a new low—to be championing yourself as some saviour while you are simultaneously shutting the door on thousands of needy people. Congratulations. You've really rewritten the rules on how cruel a government can be.

In looking at the detail of this bill, the Migration Amendment (2026 Measures No. 1) Bill 2026, it's actually not just Iranian visas that you're cancelling. It's actually a wide-ranging power. So I ask you: What country is next? What new low are you going to stoop to next week—or, perhaps, when Donald Trump rings up the Prime Minister in the middle of the night about some other crazy idea, where we send our people into harm's way for an illegal war at the whim of an unstable Donald Trump. What country will be next? Will it be Lebanon? Never mind the fact that you've got 700,000 Lebanese people who've been displaced by attacks ordered by the Israeli government in what's not described as a war—in what Minister Wong yesterday, in response to my question, described as a 'collective self-defence' because she cannot bring herself to say the word 'war'. All the legal commentators and academics are clear: Australia is at war because Donald Trump asked us to be at war. He rang up the Prime Minister and said, 'Can you please send missiles and war planes and personnel to my illegal frolic?' And that's exactly what we have done. That's exactly what this government has signed us up to—of course without asking Australians or this parliament or anyone, really. When Donald Trump asks us to deploy troops, apparently we say, 'Sure, sir, how many would you like, sir?' It's 85 today; what's it going to be next week, and where does it stop?

That's what this bill also does; it gives a blank cheque to the minister to just cancel people's visas that they've already had issued—that they could already, legally, rely on. I mean, what a power grab by this minister, and what a perverse and inhumane power grab at that. You backed this illegal war, and you've supported bombs raining down on civilians, and now you've got the gall to shut the door on those same civilians who will be impacted by those bombs. I do not know how you possibly rationalise that and, frankly, how you can live with yourselves.

This is the sort of low blow that we would have expected from the previously administration, but, interestingly, not even they sunk to this low. This is genuinely a new low. These are the sorts of actions that certainly do not 'turn the temperature down' like the Prime Minister has been asking the Greens do when we have been calling out a genocide in Gaza. Far from turning the temperature down, we're now joining an illegal war—that has seen over 150 schoolchildren bombed—because Donald Trump asked us to and now shutting the door on those very same civilians that would like to be safe and thought they had the legal right to be so. But you're getting ahead of them and saying, 'Soz, we're cancelling your right to be here.' And the Liberal Party are of course saying: 'Sure, we'll sign up to that. Let's rush it through. Let's do it on a Thursday, before we go home to our beds.'