David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the explanation.

It's a pretty extraordinary proposition. We have 27 questions here that we asked and that we gave notice of to the government. We are seeking an explanation for why they haven't been answered. The answer we get is that another senator, Senator Hume, asked too many questions. I'm not asking about Senator Hume's questions; I'm asking about the questions that we have put.

I hear the Labor cheer squad over there. No doubt, they've listened to the minister, and they want to back him in what he says.

One of the key things about the bulk of the questions we've asked for an explanation for today is that they have been questions we've asked in the course of engagement with officials in Senate estimates, in budget estimates, in committee hearings. We ask them questions. They sit there. Sometimes, in Home Affairs, you've got a room full of like 100 people—secretaries; deputy secretaries; assistant secretaries; first, second, third and fourth assistant secretaries; ministers; and advisers. It's a room full of 100 people. We ask the questions, and they take them on notice.

This room is full of people who you think would come with some basic answers, but the ministers and the bureaucrats sit there and, time after time after time, under Labor's watch, take what should be straightforward questions—that there should be an answer to—on notice. We then have had the minister come in here and say: 'Oh, it's terrible. We have so many questions on notice.' I'll tell you one great way of getting rid of that backlog of questions on notice—answer the damn questions in the course of the actual committee hearing. Answer the questions in the course of Senate estimates.

I'll take you to the first question in this list of 27 for Home Affairs, which are just from my office. In the first one, we were asking about how and why approvals happen for payments under this contract with MTC, which Labor wants to keep secret, in relation to the Nauru facilities that Australia pays for. There are billions and billions of dollars going off to Nauru, and we wanted to find out, in relation to those contracts, what kind of approvals happen for about $1 billion of public money. Often, they're approvals that are given for MTC to pay subcontractors in Nauru. We want to know what the threshold is, and when the threshold changed, for approvals to give money to Nauru—often to corporations connected with the Adeangs and the like in Nauru. We're asking: what's the threshold? We're told the threshold is $50,000. We've asked what the approval processes are and when that threshold changed from $100,000 to $50,000. For a question like that, on a major project like that, with $1 billion or so of Australian public money at stake—we asked the officials in the room when it changed from $100,000 to $50,000, and we got, from Mr Thomas, 'I'll take that on notice.'

Maybe one of the reasons that's been taken on notice—I'll be frank—is because we asked for some further answers. We asked if the department could provide, on notice, the number of subcontracts that have been signed under this new assurance assessment and the number of occasions where conflicts of interest, or exposures or links to politically-exposed persons or government entities have been raised. And most particularly, we wanted to know if those conflicts of interest or exposures included members of the Nauru government, members of the Nauru cabinet and David Adeang. We asked for that on 10 February. There's still no answer.

I get that the government doesn't want to identify how many subcontracts they've signed with companies associated with Nauru's president and his family. I get that might be embarrassing. But you're obliged to answer the question, and you didn't; you took it on notice.

We also asked on 10 February about an update on the facility in Iran for testing people's biometrics that has been closed since February of this year, because, without that one facility operating, no-one from Iran can get a visa to come to Australia. We had some engagement in the course of that. Mr Willard, who, I find, tries to assist, gave evidence that there have been periods where the biometric centre has been closed and it's a matter that they're considering. And then I said: 'It's urgent to get it reopened.' I was asking for the details, and we were told they'd give us the details:

We will follow up, given what you're saying, to find out its status as of this week.

That's what we got. We asked that on 10 February. It's not the same week, just to be clear. We're now in July. Why can't we get an update on the biometric facility in Iran?

We asked, on 10 February, again, about the promise the government has made to provide additional supports and additional places people can go to for support—particularly people on the PALM scheme, who might be being exploited or oppressed by their employers. There's a handful of contacts in the regulations that people on the PALM scheme can contact to ask questions, to try and get some legal advice or some industrial advice. There's only a handful of organisations. There was the tragic incident where someone on the PALM scheme died after appalling conditions in their employment, and they couldn't get help; they couldn't get assistance. The government has promised to expand the numbers. So we simply asked: 'If you're going to put those additional measures in, when are they going to happen? If you're going to put in the additional supports for vulnerable workers, when are you going to publish them? When are you going to put them in the regulations?' And do you know what? We got told on 10 February they'd take that on notice. It's July! Doesn't the government know? Despite the announcement that you made, is there no plan to provide those additional places for support for PALM workers? They bloody well need them. On 10 February, we asked; it's now July, and we're still waiting for an answer.

Also on 10 February we were asking some questions about what criteria Home Affairs use to stop and search people and to demand access to and go through their mobile phones when they come through the borders. In the context of this, there were a series of people who had been over on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla who had got monstered—treated appallingly—by the Israeli government; they had then come back in and had got stopped by Border Force, when they'd returned to their own country, and got questioned like they were criminals and had their phones taken off and searched. And they want to know: 'Well, what's the criteria that Border Force use to do that—to stop and search people? Is it just that you've been advocating for Palestine? Is that why you get stopped and searched? Is that why you're put on an alert?' We got told, 'Oh, you know, this is all classified; it's classified.' I said, 'Well, I just want to know the criteria. I want to know what the identifiers are, what the criteria are, that have you stopping Australian citizens as they're trying to come home. Instead of welcoming them home, you're taking them off to a closed room, grabbing their phone off them and stripping all the data off their phone with Israeli software.' That's what I wanted to know. That's what the public wants to know. We asked that on 10 February. There is still no answer. We asked that, like all of the ones I've raised, not on notice. The reason these are now on notice is the bureaucrats didn't answer them and the ministers didn't answer them in the course of the hearing. That's why we're asking for answers.

One we did put on notice—to which you'd think there'd be a pretty simple answer—on 19 February, to the Department of Home Affairs was: how many of the NZYQ affected people have been deported to Nauru? That's what we asked: how many of them have been deported to Nauru? You would have thought the government would know how many of the NZYQ cohort have been deported to Nauru. It's quite a process to do that really cruel thing to somebody—to actually strip them out of this country against their will; deport them to a third country that they have no connections with; put them in a place where they have no cultural, personal, family, economic connections; put them into that deliberately as a form of punishment. You would have thought that the government would have a list of people, that they'd know the number and that it wouldn't take six months for them to not answer. You would have thought, as at 19 February, they would have just said: 'Well, it's X number. That's how many people we have cruelly deported from the NZYQ cohort to Nauru.' But here it is, in July, and we're still waiting for an answer. Like so much of the Nauru deal, this government knows it's cooked, it knows it's cruel and it knows it's wrong, and it hides behind secrecy and nonanswers.

On 20 February we asked 'how many individuals have been transferred to a regional processing country since 31 August 2025, when we got the last data?' We're not asking to repeat data. We have data effective 31 July. We wanted to know an update as at 20 February. We're still waiting. Again, this information should be at the press of a button; this information should be able to be provided at the press of a button. We asked it on 20 February and we are still waiting for it.

Again, the Nauru secrecy comes out. On 20 February we asked 'how many people seeking asylum are currently residing in Nauru having been transferred there by Australia?' How many people who have come to Australia or sought Australia's protection have instead been sent off and are living in Nauru? Again, you would have thought a vaguely competent government would have that figure to hand. We asked it on 20 February. It is July, and we are still waiting for an answer.

One of the other issues that is raised regularly with my office is concern about unregistered migration agents operating out there and taking people's money. They're taking people's money in illegal operations, pretending to be migration agents. Instead, they're not filing visa applications—because they're not entitled to. They're taking the money and buggering off. This is a real issue for the community. We wanted to know how many unregistered migration agents have been referred to the ABF each year. The answer might be none because nobody knows how to refer to the ABF. The answer might be 'actually, no, it goes to the Australian Federal Police'. The answer might be 'well, actually we don't care about unregistered migration agents'. I don't know what the answer is from the Labor government because they haven't told us, and we've been waiting since 20 February. Is the Labor government comfortable with having unregistered migration agents? Is that the actual answer—that you don't have any scheme in place to track, prosecute and bring to account unregistered migration agents? If that's the answer, just tell us. I heard the minister say he was worried that there were questions about stationery or questions about this. I want to demonstrate here that these are substantial questions about public administration of the Home Affairs portfolio. The complete refusal of this government to answer what should be front and centre of the minister's knowledge and the bureaucrats' knowledge either in the hearing or very soon after is now getting to an extraordinary level.

On 20 February we asked some questions about the status of people in PNG. Australia has cruelly abandoned 40 people in PNG, some of whom are living in the most extreme circumstances and whose lives are seriously at risk. We asked questions about what arrangements are in place to look after those people. Some of their families have been contacting me and, I assume, other members of parliament, concerned that one of these men might die in the next few days. We've been waiting since 20 February to get some answers on that and to get some transparency on what, if any, supports the Albanese government is giving to people who came to Australia seeking protection and were then sent to PNG initially in the failed project with Manus Island and now in Port Moresby. Since 20 February we've been waiting for answers. We are deeply concerned that someone might die, and we can't even get an answer from the government. So you ask: are we satisfied with the minister's response? Well, the answer is no. (Time expired)