Scott Ryan (President, Special Minister of State) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I inform the Senate that at 8.30 am this morning 11 proposals were received in accordance with standing order 75. The question of which proposal would be submitted to the Senate was determined by lot. As a result, I inform the Senate that the following letter has been received from Senator Whish-Wilson:

Pursuant to standing order 75, I propose that the following matter of public importance be submitted to the Senate for discussion:

'The refusal of the LNP and the ALP to solve the humanitarian crisis on Manus Island that they created.'

Is the proposal supported?

More than the number of senators required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

I understand that informal arrangements have been made to allocate specific times to each of the speakers in today's debate. With the concurrence of the Senate, I shall ask the clerks to set the clock accordingly.

Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There's no other way to describe what is currently happening on Manus Island than as a humanitarian calamity. There are people entering their 15th day today without access to drinking water, food, electricity and much-needed medication, thanks to the instruction given by the Australian government and the Australian Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, Peter Dutton, to cut off the essentials of life, beginning on 31 October, to well over 600 people. We've then seen Papua New Guinea police and Papua New Guinea immigration personnel go into the camp, overturn water containers, drain precious drinking water into the dust and, yesterday, deliberately drill holes in every water container they could find to stop the detainees from being able to store any rainwater they are able to catch.

This is a humanitarian calamity of bipartisan making. Remember, it was the Australian Labor Party who put every single one of these people on Manus Island in 2013. It is still unexplained why over 1,400 people who were actually on the same boats as the people that are currently on Manus Island and Nauru are here in Australia on various categories of visas, most of them living in the Australian community, while there are still over a thousand on Manus Island, in Port Moresby or in Nauru who are like the corpses that used to be impaled on the walls of medieval cities. It is a sickening, disgusting situation that is a result of a cruel, bipartisan lock step on immigration policy in this country.

Make no mistake: the world is watching in horror. The BBC, Al Jazeera, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Radio New Zealand, The New York Timesthe list goes on of these global institutional media organisations who are reporting on these humanitarian crises.

Of course, it is the Liberal Party that have been running the detention centres on Manus Island and Nauru with extreme prejudice, in the most punitive and cruel way that they can, since they came to government, but the reason we still have these crises existing is that the Labor Party has forgotten itself. It's forgotten its roots. It's forgotten its compassion. It's forgotten its tolerance. If there is anything left in the famous light on the hill that Ben Chifley used to talk about with such fondness, that light is flickering; it is guttering; and, if it's still alive, it is in imminent danger of extinction.

Today I call on Labor Party members—and there are many good members of the ALP, senators and MPs who represent the ALP in this place, who we all know do not in their hearts support this policy—and I say to them: I'm pleased that you're speaking out. We are pleased about that, but it's not words that are going to solve this policy crisis; it is votes in this parliament that will solve this policy crisis. It is bums on seats that make laws in this place. It is the Labor and Liberal parties together who created this emergency by voting in favour of the cruel amendments to the Migration Act in 2013, and it is the Labor Party who have it within their capacity now to solve this issue.

If Labor stood up and voted with the Greens to end this humanitarian nightmare that well over 1,000 people are living on Manus Island and Nauru, the Liberal Party would not be able to stand up against it, because we know that the majority of the Australian people do not support what is going on on Manus Island and Nauru. Poll after poll has shown that over the last couple of weeks. We are seeing civil disobedience in ever-increasing numbers, and we will see more people engage in peaceful protest and civil disobedience in coming days and weeks. So I say to the Labor Party members who don't support this: thank you for speaking out, but please, please, vote with the Greens to end this humanitarian calamity.

Barry O'Sullivan (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's often not what the Greens say when they speak; it is about the things that they ignore. The Greens often come into this place and argue that laws should be broken. In this case, the good senator forgot to mention that these events are as a result of a ruling of the Supreme Court of Papua New Guinea, so it was an order. For the entire time that I have been here, these people have called for the closing of this detention centre, and, when the Supreme Court of Papua New Guinea ruled accordingly that it ought to be closed, of course overnight their voice changed. So it is not just hypocrisy; it is a concerted effort on their part to mislead the people of Australia with respect to these circumstances.

Senator McKim—can I say to you, Acting Deputy President—continued to refer to these events as a policy of the government. This is not the policy of the government. This is the government respecting the sovereignty of a foreign nation and indeed a partner in the Pacific, in Papua New Guinea, and fulfilling its wishes as ordered by the Supreme Court.

But let's just get back to the beginning. Come back to the beginning. What happened here was not the making of the government of the day. Fifty thousand people arrived illegally on over 800 boats over a period of time. It was an issue that the government inherited. The policy to put these people on Manus Island was a Greens-Labor policy, and our government had to arrive in government with a mop in one hand and a bucket in the other to clean up this mess.

You would've noted, colleagues, that not once—not once, ever—have the Greens protested about the 1,200 souls being lost at sea. Not once did they ever mention it. They want to talk about a calamity. Twelve hundred men, women and children—people whose names we don't know, in many circumstances—perished at sea, under a policy that the Greens supported in this place for many years. There were over 8,000 children detained, not under this government, but under a Labor government, and it took this government to get these children out of detention. We were able to do that, despite resistance. We're all well aware of the famous evidence by the Human Rights Commission President, who admitted, virtually, to colluding with the Labor Party, while the government was in a transitional phase, to bring criticism and to bring an inquiry onto the incoming government about children in detention. That was despite the fact that, in the early periods of this government, we removed hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of children out of detention and got them to the smallest numbers.

These people on Manus Island have choices. They have an opportunity, many of them, to go to the United States. But we have, particularly, Senator McKim up there, falsely misleading these people, so that they are resisting the opportunities that they have. They can settle in Papua New Guinea. They can move to—

Honourable Senators:

Honourable senators interjecting—

Barry O'Sullivan (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, they've got the choice already. If they've been determined to be refugees, they can settle in Papua New Guinea or they can apply to go to the United States. As to all of this rhetoric that comes out of the Greens about going to New Zealand: they already know what will happen. That will re-open people coming on the high seas into this part of the world, and more men, women, and children—whose lives you do not and have not valued or ever recognised—will perish at sea again. More people will die.

So we've got these people at Manus Island who've got choices. We've had the government of PNG declare publicly that there are other facilities to which they can go today. So they can move to these facilities. As to the standards and the care that they will receive, that, to date, has cost the Australian government $11 billion. That's 11,000 million dollars to support these people. And here you would think that somehow we've left them with a fig leaf over their vital parts, that we won't feed them or water them and that we won't give them health and psychiatric support.

One of the things that has never been recognised is this: say I were a refugee or had determined myself to be a refugee, and I had fled my country and had come, via all sorts of routes, on the high seas, on boats that should have had 50 people on them but had 500 on them, and had gone through the immense trauma of that journey to this place, and had watched my brothers and sisters and mother and father and children die, nameless, with no ceremony, no grave and no place to rest. It does not surprise me that many of these people find themselves in a conflicted position. It does not surprise me that many of these people feel traumatised. And what has our government done? We have provided exceptional health and support services for these people—so much so that many Australians in need of health and psychiatric care do not get care of the same standard that these people get it and don't get it within the same time frame. And Senator McKim knows this. This is the problem. These facts are inconvenient. And that's why we hear him over here, bellowing like an old bull caught in a barbed wire fence. Seriously, Senator McKim—as to what you've tried to portray here, you've been a single voice. You don't have any support from your colleagues. They're all silent around this question.

Senator McKim interjecting—

No; they're all here today to wave their arms around for 10 minutes while you speak, but they've been silent on this in the public. You are a minority voice, and often—as I've said about other colleagues in this place sitting opposite—you are simply an expression waiting for a thought to follow. You do not think through your statements, and you come in here with this confected anger that you've directed at the government, who have unravelled what was a humanitarian crisis—

Senator McKim interjecting—

Mr Acting Deputy President Gallacher, I suffer from a condition called sensitive ear, and I have to step away from foghorns, and senators are interrupting me while I am speaking. I would ask that you ask Senator McKim to give me the respect that I give him.

There are difficulties up there. There are difficulties up there, because Senator McKim and his predecessor, Senator Hanson-Young, have being going up there consistently to stir these people up there. They go there to give them absolute false hope. They go up there to convince them to engage in civil disobedience—which, of course, is one of the tools in their tool bag. They want them to resist. He talks about communicating with them all the time and giving them advice. Why don't you release any communications that you've got—texts and emails—with any of these people in this camp, so that we can make an assessment as to what sound advice you're giving them or, more likely than not, not giving them.

Senator Rhiannon interjecting—

Senator, fancy that coming from you! Fancy you suggesting to me that I'm not telling the truth here. I just asked a question, and you need to get your colleague to provide those communications so that this Senate can make a judgement on them.

Senator McKim interjecting—

I had an old utility that had a squeak like that and I got rid of it, and the Senate ought to get rid of you. In closing, this government has set an example to the world in terms of managing what has been a very difficult situation that it inherited from Labor and the Greens.

Senator McKim interjecting—

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order on my left!

Barry O'Sullivan (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Jiminy cricket, he makes a lot of noise, that fellow! All I can recommend is that everybody looks carefully at the facts. Have a look not at what Senator McKim and the Greens say; have a look at what they don't say, because, when the inconvenient truths are presented, their protests sound very, very hollow. (Time expired)

Lisa Singh (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You can determine the health of a democracy by how it treats some of its most vulnerable people. Some of those vulnerable people were asylum seekers who travelled to Australia on leaky boats some many years ago and sought asylum. It is now some five years on and those asylum seekers, men, women, and children, on Manus Island and Nauru have been languishing and have been treated appallingly by this government. They have simply been left and forgotten. As a country, we cannot abdicate our responsibility for what occurs on Manus Island. But the other thing we should not be doing is creating politics out of this—and that is exactly what the government have been doing for so many years now. They have been creating fear politics with the Australian people. This, of course, has led to these asylum seekers not being able to be settled in Australia; in fact, not being able to be settled anywhere.

These asylum seekers have indeed been forgotten by this government—so much so that the government has received incredible and ongoing criticism not just from civil society here in Australia, not just from the opposition and other parties, but also from the international community, and only as recently as a week or so ago, when the United Nations Human Rights Committee released its recommendations from its review of Australia's compliance with a key human rights treaty, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights—another breach of a treaty that we have signed up to, but there are so many more. One thing I learnt last year when I spent some time at the United Nations was that the one issue that we were absolutely pulled over the coals for as a nation, and rightly so, was how we were treating vulnerable people who sought asylum—how we were treating refugees.

It's obviously a very opportune week for Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull because he's at the East Asia Summit. He has that opportunity again to engage with President Trump and also with Prime Minister Ardern. Both the US and the New Zealand governments have offered and agreed to settle these refugees who are desperately seeking settlement so that they can rebuild their lives and get over the trauma that they have suffered. We are still waiting, of course, for the some 1,250 that the US agreed to settle to actually be settled. There have only been about 50. But I understand from the briefings I've received that that processing is going as it should be and, hopefully, will happen sooner than later. The other offer on the table came over a year ago—probably 18 months ago now—from the former New Zealand government, but it has continued under the new New Zealand Labour government, to settle some 150 refugees a year who are on Manus.

I've written to Minister Dutton and I've written to Mr Turnbull. Labor has been constantly asking this government to act on these settlement options. But it's refusing to do so. What does that say about this government? It says that it is quite willing to leave 600 men on Manus Island, potentially in a situation where their lives are at stake and where they're fearing for their ongoing safety. It is absolutely abhorrent to me and to everyone in the Labor Party that a government would treat another human being in this way. We do have a sense of humanity and that is why we have been constantly asking this government to act, whether it's on the medical care that those on these offshore islands have required in Australia or whether it's on the New Zealand settlement arrangement. We have constantly been calling on this government to act.

I say to the Greens: I'm sure that you have well-intentioned ideals in wanting this situation to be resolved. But attacking the Labor Party time and time again is not going to get you there. We know what the facts are.

Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Vote with us then!

Lisa Singh (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator McKim constantly comes into this place and gets out on the media streams, saying, 'Tell everyone the facts.' We know the facts. We know how bad the facts are. We don't need you to constantly tell us the facts. We have civil society out there telling us the facts. I've had umpteen briefings from the UNHCR. Amnesty International are at this moment waiting in my office to give me another briefing. We've had so many briefings. We know how bad it is, and we have made it so public that the government knows. What we need are solutions. We need solutions to this problem. So stop playing politics with the Labor Party because you make yourselves just as bad as the government in doing so. We know you're the protest party. You're not a party of government. But you need to make a decision. What government do you want at the next election? Do you want a Labor government or do you want a coalition government? Every time you attack the progressive side of politics, you do yourself a disservice in the sense that you are assisting the coalition to win brownie points. That is not helping the people on Manus Island, nor the people on Nauru. Giving them false hope does not help.

The Greens cannot resolve this issue. They can come in here, they can pass motions and they can get in the media, but they will not be in government. There is a two-party preferred system in this country, and at the next election either there will be a Labor government or there will be a coalition government. I know which one I'd prefer, and I certainly know which one the people in my Australian community—indeed, in my Tasmanian community—would prefer when it comes to the issue of refugees. If they want make a protest vote, they can vote for the Greens.

Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You've got the same policies as the Liberals!

Lisa Singh (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

But if they actually want a government—

Alex Gallacher (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Singh, resume your seat! Interjections are disorderly. Senators are expected to be heard in silence. Senator Singh, please address your remarks to the chair.

Lisa Singh (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am someone in the Labor Party—and I'm not the only person in the Labor Party—who has taken a very, very active and compassionate role in relation to the rights and the plight of refugees and asylum seekers for years. I will not have the Greens come into this place and pretend that they are holier than thou with their moral virtues, that they are somehow going to resolve this awful situation when they simply have no power to do so. Moving a motion in this place is not going to resolve that. No matter how many tweets, Facebook posts and media stunts you do they are not going to resolve that, so grow up! Grow up, and start to work out how to create good policy. The dark green taint of Senator McKim gives Senator Richard Di Natale absolutely no support whatsoever. I'm sure he will soon realise that.

I think that the Greens, to be honest, are trying somehow to remain relevant in a time when they have become more and more irrelevant. The more they've moved away from the trees and tried to move into mainstream politics they have failed. So the only way that they continue to remain relevant is by wedging the progressive side of politics—by wedging the very people who have decency, who have humanity and who have care for people who sought out our protection, who sought asylum.

I am so sick of it. So many people on this side are sick of it. Why don't you actually attack the government? It's the government that is treating people so badly. It's the government that can change its policies. That's what we do! We actually address the fact that it's the government failing these people and that it's the government that needs to find solutions. Why don't you go to New Zealand and talk to new Labour Prime Minister Ardern about her offer and ensure that Malcolm Turnbull takes it up? No, you attack the Labor Party. That's the Greens. That's what happens when the Greens run out of ideas about how to continue to increase their vote numbers. Let's face it, we know their dishonest approach when it comes to this debate.

Well, here we are, in a situation that is a calamity. It is indeed a catastrophe, and I do fear for the lives of those men on Manus Island. I fear for their safety and I fear for their lives. And I will continue, day in, day out, to try to ensure that the government moves on this issue and settles these refugees so that this terrible situation comes to an end.

Richard Di Natale (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak about what this matter of public importance is actually about, and that is about the fate of those innocent people languishing in a jail where water and sanitation have been cut off. It is a humanitarian catastrophe, a crisis that needs to be resolved, and resolved urgently.

We now have over 400 men enclosed in the former detention centre, where food, water, sanitation and medical supplies, including medication, have been cut off from these people. Now, as a doctor, I can only imagine what the health consequences of these actions will be. We are going to see the spread of disease as a result of the lack of access to clean drinking water and to sanitation. That is a sure thing if this continues.

We know that many of these people are traumatised. They have fled wars. They have fled persecution and trauma. These are traumatised people, many of whom are depressed and many of whom are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Their psychotropic medication has now been withdrawn. We know that the abrupt withdrawal of medication like that can precipitate suicide. We know that people will die. Anti-convulsant medication has been taken away from people with epilepsy. It is remarkable that here we are in 21st century Australia and we have a government that is prepared to inflict more cruelty and more trauma on innocent people who are suffering. These aren't just the words of the Greens or of refugee advocates. The United Nations and Human Rights Watch have said this. We've heard Amnesty International describe what has happened to these people as torture. They are all saying this is a humanitarian crisis.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Who is?

Richard Di Natale (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I just said. I'll take Senator Macdonald's interjection. The UnitedNations and Human Rights Watch define this as a humanitarian crisis.

More than a week ago we saw water, electricity and food supplies cut off. People have been told, 'You need to move out,' but we know from the UNHCR that the reported facilities that were supposed to be ready are not fit for human habitation. But that, of course, is not the major issue. The major issue is that we are asking people to come out of that detention centre and go into an environment where there are a number of people in the local community who simply don't want them there and who are prepared to use violence to resolve this conflict. The fear of these individuals is real.

I pay tribute to Senator McKim for having the bravery and the courage to go there and bear witness to what's going on. Senator McKim stands like a beacon in this place for being prepared to bear witness. It's remarkable that people in this place would accuse Senator McKim and others of inciting violence, as though these individuals have no agency and no capacity or, because these are people who are coming from another culture, somehow they're not capable of making their own decisions. It is remarkable. The time has come for us to accept, at the very least, New Zealand's offer of generosity to take those 150 people, and to ditch the deal with the US. For God's sake, let's show a bit of humanity and a bit of decency. Why can't we bring them here? Why can't we offer these people safety?

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What an inconvenient situation for the Greens political party that I just happened to be in Papua New Guinea last week. Some lawyers, no doubt egged on by Senator McKim—and the usual bunch of lawyers that we get at every Senate estimates committee—took proceedings within the Supreme Court of Papua New Guinea. That court met just last Tuesday, the 7th. The claim by these people was that the closure was unconstitutional. They were seeking orders from the Supreme Court to restrain military personnel from taking over the naval base. They were claiming orders that food should be restored and electricity and water supplies should be restored. But, of course, that was opposed by the PNG government, who are the relevant government, on the basis that services were fully provided at the east Lorengau detention centre for refugees, at the west Lorengau detention centre for refugees and at the Hillside centre for non-refugees.

I know it's not possible in this chamber for me to use props or to show this photograph, but let me describe the photograph from The National, the newspaper of Papua New Guinea, which has a policeman pointing to the east Lorengau camp that has been set up. I can't show this, but might I say it looks like a 1980s motel in Australia. It's a long building. It looks to contain 50 or so rooms. It's hard walled with cement pylons, windows and air conditioning. It has panels on the roof for electricity. When the Supreme Court heard all of the evidence from reliable sources, it dismissed the claim, saying that there were alternative facilities available. All of the lies you hear from the Greens political party and GetUp! about this being a humanitarian crisis and that people are living in a hovel are completely unnecessary, because the PNG government has provided not one, not two, but three other facilities where there is water, there is food, there is every facility and there is air conditioning—and a lot of better than many Australians have in their own home. I will seek later to table this newspaper cutting, which has a photograph of the east Lorengau centre that simply puts the lie to the Greens political party. You can see how they've all gone quiet, because someone has—

Senator McKim interjecting—

You can say what you like when no-one else is there, Senator McKim, but I happened to be there. I happened to have some discussions with the member for Manus.

Alex Gallacher (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I remind all senators that interjections are disorderly and that senators should address their comments through the chair.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We're told these people are in a jail. It's the sort of inflammatory language the Greens use. They sent along their GetUp! people to invade my office last Friday when I was in PNG at the time—they were too stupid to come when I was there—and they got themselves arrested because they intimidated my staff. But we expect those sorts of things from the Greens and GetUp!. If Senator McKim and Senator Singh want to know what's really happening, why go to UNHCR officials? Some of them are good; some of them you couldn't describe that way. Why not go to the honest, hardworking Australian public servants who know what is happening there?

I have the misfortune of chairing the estimates committee where immigration is brought up, and every time Senator McKim keeps asking the same questions and being told by Australian public servants what the situation is. The situation is these people—who are not refugees, most of whom have been found not to be refugees; those who are refugees have been invited to apply to go to America or can settle within Papua New Guinea—are currently getting $174 a week in pay from the Australian taxpayer in addition to medical care and accommodation, which includes all of their food.

As Senator McKim has been told time and time again, the people on Manus are free to move around the island and in the general community there. The Courier Mail showed a wonderful photo of some of these so-called refugees being confined there, looking like they're on a holiday on a tropical island. They're allowed to do that. They live there freely. They can come and go as they please. Again, this is evidence in the Senate estimates committee. The service is much nicer at east Lorengau—I'm quoting an Australian official—than in the regional processing centre, which is where they were. All the accommodation being offered is hard walled. Each of the units in east Lorengau that people will be living in have a shared kitchen, a living facility, a number of bedrooms and a bathroom. They have a washing machine facility adjacent to the unit areas, as well as prayer rooms and other service areas where they can congregate and meet, and there are training facilities as well. Does this sound like a jail? Does this sound like the police and army in PNG are herding these people around and tipping over their only source of water? They only have to walk—they don't have to walk, they will be transported by the PNG officials—a couple of minutes away to three wonderful sites that are available and have all the food, all the medication, all the doctors, all the resources that are needed.

Yet Senator McKim would have Australians believe—and he fools some people. Some of these GetUp! numpties that run around protesting might be fooled by Senator McKim, but why don't they find out the real facts and not take the word of Senator McKim, who has a clear personal interest in this? I often wonder just how much the people smugglers donate to the Greens political party at election time, because every one of these illegal maritime arrivals was paying the people smugglers $15,000 per person. They're hardly poor people. That's in addition to the airfare to Indonesia. Senator McKim goes up there and gives these people false hope. He tells them that, if they protest enough, they might eventually get into Australia, but they will not get into Australia. They should know that. They have wonderful accommodation facilities, with food, water, clothing, electricity and air conditioning, just around the corner. But don't take my word for it; go and read the decision of the Supreme Court of Papua New Guinea, which made findings of fact that there was no case for those people to stay there; there was nothing holding them there; there were other perfectly good facilities, with food, water, shelter and clothing, just around the corner.

It would help if some of the people there weren't alleged to have committed sexual offences on under-aged children there. That has upset some of the locals; I know that. But the majority of those there are not in that category and they are free to come and go. In fact, as someone said in the newspaper in PNG while unfortunately I just happened to be there last week, Senator McKim, these people have actually been moving from this site to these other sites for the last three years, walking back and forth quite safely with no threat to their lives or persons. All of the facilities are there and available.

I cannot believe how Greens political party members can tell blatant lies about the situation there when it is there for anyone to see.

David Leyonhjelm (NSW, Liberal Democratic Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator McKim, a point of order?

Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, a point of order: that is clearly an unparliamentary allegation that Senator Macdonald has raised.

David Leyonhjelm (NSW, Liberal Democratic Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator McKim. It wasn't directed at any individual senator. That is not a point of order.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's true! The Greens political party did go around making up these lies to try to convince the gullible people who they then sent to invade my office in Townsville and intimidate my staff. Can I tell you, Senator McKim: if you're going to send them, next time at least get them to go while I'm there. They won't worry me—that is, if they get out of jail in time.

I don't want to demean this debate. I just ask anyone interested in the facts—

Senator McKim interjecting—

interested in the facts, rather than the lies, to have a look at what Australian public servants say; to have a look at what the Supreme Court of Papua New Guinea says—the actual facts of what's available. Everything you've heard from Senator McKim in this debate and elsewhere is factually wrong.

Lee Rhiannon (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Peter Dutton should be charged and tried with crimes against humanity. The evidence is clear from UN bodies, the AMA and Amnesty, and we've heard the contributions of Senators Nick McKim and Richard Di Natale—like Senator Di Natale's description of what is happening to the health of the 400 men forced into the most appalling situation, which is deeply shocking on its own, and Senator McKim's description of the deprivation with regard to the removal of water containers.

How could it come to this? We know why it's come to this. The Liberals and the Nationals see this as a way to retain power. They have been cultivating fear of refugees in this country for so long. This is the ugly side of politics in the 21st century. That it has come to this is incredible. I've lived in this country all my life, but to see our government, whatever its persuasion, doing this is deeply shocking. Peter Dutton, the minister, is holding on to his seat by 1,505 votes. That is what is motivating him so deeply to cultivate this fear amongst people, hoping that's how he can cling on to power. How forceful he is in wanting to retain that tactic was shown in the way he handled the offer from the new Prime Minister of New Zealand, Prime Minister Ardern, which said very clearly that 150 of these people could go to New Zealand. Before the Australian Prime Minister had had the opportunity to discuss that offer with the New Zealand Prime Minister, he was already out there condemning and rejecting it, because he wants to hold on to this scare tactic that they're running.

Why? Because we also know what the purpose of Manus is. The Prime Minister knows it, the former minister, Mr Morrison, knows it and Minister Dutton knows it—that is, they are using Manus Island as a deterrent by making the whole place so repulsive, so brutal. The degree of suffering, abuse and torture that the 600 men who have been there for many months have experienced is beyond belief. And that's the intent of this island—to make it so repulsive that the message will percolate out: 'Don't try and come to Australia; it's a ruthless regime, and this is what will happen to you.' So that's the situation with the coalition.

Now, as to Labor: Labor do need to look at what they're doing. There is a pathway for them to change their position. The United Nations Human Rights Council has called for Manus to be closed immediately. The United Nations refugee council has talked about the unspeakable persecution going on there. And, despite what Senator Macdonald says, the PNG government has said, very clearly, that this is Australia's responsibility, as have all those people there—the AMA; Catholic Social Services; Amnesty. Labor, if they could find their backbone, would have the backing of so many. They can have a pathway to standing up and doing the right thing by Australian law and by international law.

I do congratulate the protesters who disrupted the Melbourne Cup, and those who got onto the Opera House and took over the immigration department. Direct action is now being taken up by more people. People are angry in Australia; they're deeply disturbed. I very much congratulate Senator Nick McKim for going to that island and getting evidence from those people and bringing it back here. The clear message now is: evacuate. Evacuate now. Bring these 400 people to safety. That's 400 people; other countries have millions of refugees. It's time we did the right thing, and it should start with these 400 men.

Alex Gallacher (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I acknowledge the passion and fire that's in the debate currently before the chamber. A number of positions have been purported to be that of the Labor Party. I think it's really instructive to note general business notice of motion No. 552, moved by Senator Carr and carried by 31 to 28 votes in this chamber today. That clearly and succinctly sets out the position of the Australian Labor Party. It reads:

That the Senate—

(a) acknowledges the failure of the Abbott-Turnbull Government to manage offshore processing arrangements and secure other third country resettlement arrangements for eligible refugees;

(b) notes the United States of America refugee resettlement agreement will resettle up to 1 250 eligible refugees from Manus Island and Nauru but that some eligible refugees will miss out on the opportunity to resettle in America;

(c) acknowledges former Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced an agreement with Prime Minister John Key on 9 February 2013 at the annual Australia-New Zealand Leaders' meeting that:

  (i) New Zealand would resettle 150 refugees annually from Australia, including refugees from Manus Island and Nauru, and

  (ii) the first refugees would be resettled in 2014;

(d) notes that, if former Prime Minister Tony Abbott had not withdrawn from the agreement, as many as 600 refugees would have been resettled in New Zealand by now;

(e) acknowledges the inquiry and report of the Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee, Serious allegations of abuse, self-harm and neglect of asylum seekers in relation to the Nauru Regional Processing Centre, and any like allegations in relation to the Manus, and in particular, recommendation 7: "The committee recommends that the Australian Government give serious consideration to all resettlement offers it receives, including the Government of New Zealand's offer to resettle refugees from Papua New Guinea and the Republic of Nauru. Further, if particular resettlement offers are considered unsuitable, the Government should clearly outline the reasons";

(f) notes New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has renewed the offer to Australia to resettle 150 refugees from Manus Island and Nauru;

(g) notes Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has failed to explain why he will not accept New Zealand's offer to resettle eligible refugees from Manus and Nauru; and—

finally in this motion, the very good work of Senator Carr and others—

(h) calls on the Turnbull Government to immediately accept New Zealand's offer to resettle refugees from Manus Island and Nauru and begin negotiating appropriate conditions, similar to the United States refugee resettlement agreement, to ensure people smugglers do not exploit vulnerable people.

This has been an issue ever since I came into this place on, I think, 1 July 2011. I can remember Senator Cash being extremely vocal on this issue. It occurred to me at that time. Right at that point I thought: 'This is Australia. Why are we fighting over this issue? Our reputation as a taker of humanitarian refugees is without question.' Without question, we have taken more humanitarian refugees per capita than almost any other nation in the world. We've done it well, we've done it successfully and I think we did it in a bipartisan way. But the tragedy of this situation now is that we can't find our way through what looks like a pretty awful situation.

I don't like to turn on the TV and see people in distress anywhere, and we certainly don't like to see people who ostensibly are under the support, care and protection of the Australian government without electricity, water, medical facilities and the like. But I'm not sure that the political parties in this place at the moment—and I exempt the Labor Party from this, but I include the Greens party and the coalition—are really working in any way collegiately and cooperatively to a proper resolution.

It appears as if our Prime Minister has unerringly bad judgement and, whenever there is a chance to make a decision, he will unfailingly make the wrong decision. There is evidence of that right throughout his prime ministership. If ever there was a case for a Prime Minister to grab an issue by the whatever you'd like to refer to and show some genuine leadership, this is it. There have been a succession of ministers in this space. I do not talk at first hand, but I've heard in our caucus previous ministers in this space who have been distressed. The immigration portfolio has been a life-changing experience. It has really changed the way they've thought about and looked at the whole of our activity in this space. So it is not an easy portfolio and we had many problems, but what has happened has become immensely political now.

I get, like every senator in this place, the genuine concern. Australian constituents are making appointments, coming into my office and asking me to support positions which are contrary to my party policy and probably contrary to the fairly pragmatic position that I hold, but I understand the passion which they feel. They want these people to be in a better space, and it's a genuinely widely felt and deeply felt issue right throughout the Australian community. If ever there was one issue which we should be working together on, this is the type of issue where we should have no difference. Labor, Liberal, Green, Australian Conservatives—no-one should be allowed to get away with playing tawdry political games in this space.

Australia has an enviable reputation as a haven for people in humanitarian refugee intakes. I went to the town of Mount Gambier a couple of years ago, just after I became a senator. We had taken Karen refugees from the Burmese border. We had taken a chance, so to speak. We relocated them into regional South Australia, and in a very short space of time their children had taken over the schools. They were excellent in every area. The parents had got into viticulture and were all excelling at contributing to the economy. At their Australian citizenship ceremony, they sang the anthem in English, and all of them were working. We do this very well.

There is this really hard economic line about people who are refugees. Let's face it: we know that the stats say that quite a large proportion of these people on Manus Island are refugees. If we're not going to let them in here, we should be resettling them somewhere else. We shouldn't be simply saying, 'The door's closed here; you can rot in New Guinea,' because I don't think I would like to live in New Guinea. I don't think I would like the opportunity to participate in the New Guinea economy, and I qualify all this by saying I have never been in New Guinea, but, from what I have seen of some of the problems that any country that's developing has, it's not a place where I would like to go and resettle. So you can understand that these people are not actually inspired to settle in New Guinea.

But I really do think that we ought to do this debate a bit of justice and rise above the petty pointscoring and politics. I respect Senator Rhiannon's contribution, but I don't really think that roughing people up at a fundraiser or becoming strident in your verbal and physical actions is going to bring a result that helps people. I think the division that has been shown in this last hour is the problem. Harder heads need to get together, sit down and work out a compromise solution which sees these people move to New Zealand or move to the United States or move to any other resettlement option.

I don't disagree in some respects that the Hon. Peter Dutton would be the hardest of people in this space. Given that it's an extremely hard task, he has not shown any compassion, any mercy or anything other than, 'My way or the highway,' and, 'I am right on this.' Anyway, what it really looks like, and what I really have some discomfort with, is that he seems to think it's good politics. Well, if it is good politics and it gets him some votes, it's a disgraceful way to get votes by treading on people's humanity, by not affording them the generosity that was afforded to me, my family, Senator Dastyari's family and many hundreds of thousands, in fact millions, of Australians who came to this country, made a good life and were welcomed. If you want to play politics, this is the wrong issue.

Stirling Griff (SA, Nick Xenophon Team) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

For two weeks now, over 600 asylum seekers and refugees have been holed up in the Manus Regional Processing Centre and have rightly refused to move to the new transit accommodation at Lorengau, which they fear very much is not secure. While these men endure squalid conditions, it is business as usual for this government. Drinking water, food, medical treatment, electricity and sewerage services have been cut off. The government has now made this PNG's problem, when it really very much should be ours.

This is an international embarrassment. Worse, how can Australia diplomatically counsel other countries about their human rights obligations when we are clearly—very clearly—failing ours? Need we be reminded that in June the government settled a $70 million class action brought about by more than 1,900 men who were detained in hostile and damaging conditions? It seems that, once asylum seekers arrive by boat, this government forgets that they are human beings with needs and emotions, no different from any of us here. Many have suffered terrible events in their home country and continue to suffer in detention.

The new transit accommodation has been hastily erected, and, according to the UNHCR, the West Lorengau transit facility was still incomplete by the time the men were due to move in on 31 October. This still appears to be the case.

Given the fact that the local community doesn't want them there and these detainees are really Australia's responsibility, the government should consider New Zealand's genuine offer to resettle 150 asylum seekers. That is 150 men and women who finally get a chance to live a full and peaceful life. As for the government's argument that it will encourage asylum seekers to use New Zealand as a back door to Australia, well, that argument is very flimsy. Besides the fact that it insults New Zealand by implying that people our neighbour accepts would immediately seek to leave rather than stay there, I fail to see how this argument can be sustained. Firstly, New Zealand is only proposing to take 150 people. It's not an open-ended offer. Secondly, a similar argument can be made against the US deal, which the government was so happy to jump on.

Too many asylum seekers spend too many years wallowing in immigration detention. The irony and the horror are that we are simply doing more damage to already traumatised people, and we offer them no hope. I add my voice to that of the UNHCR and many others urging the government to accept New Zealand's offer and, over and above that, to remember its humanity and expedite resettlement of all our offshore detainees.

Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The humanitarian disaster that is unfolding on Manus Island makes me ashamed to be an Australian. The Australia that I know and love is a welcoming place. It's a place where we value people from all over the world. In particular, it's a place where we have welcomed refugees with open arms for decades and decades. The Australians that I know have good hearts. The Australians that I know do not condone torture—and that's what we are doing to these innocent people. The UNHCR says indefinite detention is torture—let alone leaving men to die, which is what is going on in the Manus Island detention centre now. This is Australia's Guantanamo Bay. This is our Gitmo.

The people of Australia are saying it's not happening in our name. The caring, thoughtful, welcoming people of Australia, who live in our diverse multicultural community, know that these people who we have locked up indefinitely, these people who have lost all hope, are our brothers, they are other people's brothers, they are people's husbands, they are people's children, they are people who love and live and just want a chance to be living a good life. They are people who have fled persecution from many different parts of the world—from Iran, from Iraq, from Burma. They are the Rohingyan refugees whom we in this place over the last month have been so concerned about and wanting to make sure that they could have a good life. That's who these people are. But because in their desperation to flee persecution they got on a boat to come to Australia we have turned our backs on them and said no. We've said: 'We don't see you as humans. We're just going to treat you as collateral damage. You are just the scapegoats. You are just going to be the example for the rest of the world to stop the boats.' And these men are dying to be that example.

That is not the Australia that I want to be part of. These men deserve a life. We know that we haven't even stopped the boats by having them at Manus island. We are just turning the boats away and not talking about it. We know what needs to happen to stop the boats—and that is for the world, including Australia, to accept that there are millions of refugees in the world who need to be resettled and that we need to be having serious attempts to create peace in their countries. These people are going to need to have places to be resettled in. We need to be lifting our intake of refugees in Australia, not turning people away.

We've got a chance to reshape what's going on now and actually say, 'Enough is enough. These people deserve to come to Australia. They can be Australians. They will fit in as Australians like refugees before them have done.' We have 400 people fleeing persecution. We have people there who can't be resettled in PNG because of its anti-homosexuality legislation. They would continue to be persecuted if they were to live in PNG. We should be welcoming these people as our fellow Australians and showing Australia to be the humanitarian, caring, welcoming country that we once were. (Time expired)

David Leyonhjelm (NSW, Liberal Democratic Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The time for the discussion has expired.