Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Assistant Minister for Immigration and Border Protection (Senator Cash) to a question without notice asked by Senator Hanson-Young today relating to protection visas.

It was clear as day during the minister's press conference earlier this afternoon that there is no limit to how cruel, how mean-spirited and how heartless this government is prepared to be when it comes to treating refugees properly with decency and respect. We know of course that the whole idea of temporary protection visas was only to punish people who had already arrived here in Australia. That is one of the key reasons the Senate agreed to disallow the use of temporary protection visas. Yet, with such chest-thumping, with such arrogance, we now see Mr Morrison, Tony Abbott and the government throwing the biggest hissy fit of the week. We saw backflips around education on Monday. We now see the hissy fit of the week, which is all because the government has not got their way in the Senate.

They wanted to be able to punish people for punishment's sake. They have not got that so now they are going to thumb their nose not just at the Australian people but at the parliament. This is a government that has absolute disrespect for the parliament. They do not answer questions properly in question time; they hold information back; they have a secret strategy when it comes to their 'operation secret boats'. And now they are not even prepared to accept the will of the parliament and they are finding a way to circumvent the decision that this place made earlier this week. The freezing of visas of refugees who have been assessed and found to be in genuine need of protection is one of the most abhorrent, impractical and cruel things this government could do.

I refer the chamber to a comment made by former Liberal Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser. I wonder whether the government of the day, whether it is this minister in this house or the minister in the other place, have ever actually contemplated what former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser said when he asserted that Australia 'would have to be as brutal as the Taliban for deterrence policies to work'. It is a very good question. How brutal is this government prepared to be? How many children are now going to be detained indefinitely, for longer than they ever should have been, because of the nasty decision to freeze their visas? It was only 12 months ago when we heard the immigration minister, back then in opposition, and the rest of his front bench complaining and raising concerns in relation to the former government's freezing of refugee applications. That was a bad idea then; that is a terrible idea now. It does not act as a deterrent. It is only cruelty for cruelty's sake.

The other aspect of the question I put to the minister was about what legal advice the government has on this cruel, heartless, impractical decision to simply freeze everybody's visas, despite the fact that the majority of them are found to be refugees, many are already living in the community, and they are desperate to start putting their lives back together and to start providing for their families. We do not even know whether this is going to stack up against any legal challenge. Remember when the last Prime Minister made a rash decision to strip away people's rights? Former Prime Minister Gillard wanted to ship everybody off to Malaysia, which of course was in absolute contradiction to the obligations that we hold under the Migration Act. We still do not know whether it is actually within the law, what Mr Morrison has announced today. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.