Karen Grogan (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I present the fifth report of 2025 of the Selection of Bills Committee, and I seek leave to have the report incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The report read as follows—

Selection of Bills Committee

REPORT NO. 5 OF 2025

28 August 2025

MEMBERS OF THE COMMITTEE

Senator Lisa Darmanin (Acting Government Whip, Chair) Senator Wendy Askew (Opposition Whip)

Senator Pauline Hanson (Pauline Hanson's One Nation Whip) Senator Nick McKim (Australian Greens Whip)

Senator Ralph Babet Senator Leah Blyth Senator Ross Cadell

Senator the Hon. Anthony Chisholm Senator Jessica Collins

Senator the Hon. Katy Gallagher Senator Jacqui Lambie

Senator Fatima Payman Senator David Pocock

Senator Tony Sheldon (Government Whip) Senator Lidia Thorpe

Secretary: Tim Bryant 02 6277 3020

SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE

REPORT NO. 5 OF 2025

The committee met in private session on Wednesday, 27 August 2025 at 7.07pm.

The committee recommends that the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Public Consultancy and Services Contracts Bill 2025 be referred immediately to the Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 30 March 2026 (see appendix 1 for statement of reasons for referral).

The committee recommends that the following bill not be referred to committees:

The committee deferred consideration of the following bills to its next meeting:

Members of Parliament (Staff) Amendment (Providing Certainty and Improving Integrity) Bill 2025

(Lisa Darmanin)

Chair

28 August 2025

Appendix 1

SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE

Proposal to refer a bill to a committee

Name of bill: Parliamentary Joint Committee on Public Consultancy and Services Contracts Bill 2025

Reasons for referral/principal issues for consideration: To scrutinise this legislation and to hear from stakeholders about the importance of this legislation.

Possible submissions or evidence from: Interested parties and stakeholders

Committee to which bill is to be referred: Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee

Possible hearing date(s): October 2025 to February 2026

Possible reporting date: 30 March 2026

(signed)

Print name: SENATOR WENDY ASKEW

I move:

That the report be adopted.

Anthony Chisholm (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Regional Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move the following amendment to the motion that the report be adopted:

At the end of the motion, add: "and the Telecommunications and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2025 not be referred to a committee".

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

I move the amendment circulated by my colleague Senator McKim to the motion that the report be adopted:

At the end of the motion, add: "but, in respect of:

(a) the Home Affairs Legislation Amendment (2025 Measures No. 1) Bill 2025, the provisions of the bill be referred immediately to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 28 October 2025"; and

(b) the Telecommunications and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2025, the provisions of the bill be referred immediately to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 28 October 2025".

In what was a chaotic day, with so much other news around, we saw the Albanese Labor government try to sneak through yet another vicious attack on the rights of refugees and on the rights of people seeking asylum. They tried to do it on the quiet and to sneak it through. Again, what we're seeing is this government desperately keen to avoid transparency and to avoid scrutiny—in this case, of one of the nastiest, meanest attacks on multicultural Australia and on the basic set of decency and rights that we should be giving to people who come here to seek our protection.

We have seen the Albanese Labor government being led like a little, tame poodle by the coalition down this nasty pathway of a competition to see who can be the most mean, the cruellest, to refugees and people seeking asylum. It is a race that only the least principled, the ugliest, the meanest, the nastiest, can win. My guess is that, at the end of the day, the coalition will win that fight. That's their history. But, I can tell you what, the Albanese Labor government are doing everything they can to put it in contest.

The Home Affairs Legislation Amendment (2025 Measures No. 1) Bill 2025 removes the rights of natural justice, the right to basically be heard, before some of the most far-reaching decisions are made in relation to people's lives. In this case, the Albanese government wants to be able to make a decision to deport somebody from Australia, often somebody who has already had an asylum claim made in their favour, so we know that they have a need for protection; we know that they have a need for asylum. But now the Albanese government wants to be able to deport them to Nauru without ever asking and without ever testing what impact that might have on their health and on their family—without even asking. Worse, the Albanese government want to be able to approach the Nauruan government to apply for a visa in that person's name to force them to go to Nauru—again, without ever giving these people even the right to know the application is happening, let alone the right to correct obvious errors, to tell the Nauru government and the Australian government about their health concerns or to explain why leaving their child behind might not be fair. They're not even asking.

The right of natural justice has been embedded in our common law traditions not for decades but for centuries. Why do we have a right to natural justice? Because it reflects our values as a country that believes in the rule of law and in basic decency. But it obviously doesn't reflect the Albanese-Labor government's values, because they want to rip it away from some of the most vulnerable people in the country.

Do you know what? If that's not bad enough, once people get to Nauru—under Labor's plan to not tell them, deport them and break up families—the Nauru government has made it clear what they want. They want, in breach of the refugee convention, to send those people back to the countries from which they fled—to send them to Iran, to send them to Afghanistan. They want to do this all without even having that basic human decency of asking or giving the people the right to know that the application has been made or that they may, as human beings, have a right to be heard before the Albanese government deports them to Nauru on their way to Afghanistan or on their way to Iran. Shame on the Albanese government for doing this. Shame on you not even having the guts to put it to the committee so that the Australian public gets a chance to see what you're doing and to see the latest stitch-up job you're doing with the coalition.

Of course, we're moving this amendment to send this ugly bill, this mean bill, this nasty Labor bill to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee, so that we can shine some sunlight on your meanness. Maybe that sunlight will be a kind of disinfectant for some of the ugly nastiness that's happening in the Labor government. Maybe you can realise that you have a whacking great majority down in that other house, and, with us, you have a progressive majority in the Senate. You don't need to follow the coalition's dog whistle on this stuff. You can recover a pathway to decency. That's why we move this amendment.

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

I want to follow up on that excellent contribution from Senator Shoebridge by reminding the Senate that we are dealing with human beings here. As Senator Shoebridge said, the decisions that are encapsulated in this legislation are some of the most consequential decisions imaginable for people who are in an incredibly vulnerable position, who have already been displaced from their homes and who, in many cases, have fled to Australia seeking safety—as is their right under the refugee convention—and had their claims for asylum either accepted or placed under consideration by the government.

I want to remind people in this country that, if you look at the history of persecution of people seeking asylum in this country, almost inevitably the most draconian measures have been introduced by the Labor Party, not the Liberal Party. Why have they done that? Because they are running scared. They have made a decision based on political calculus. The collateral damage of that decision is the lives of some of the most vulnerable people who are currently in this country—refugees and people who are seeking asylum. They are being persecuted by the Labor Party because Labor's political calculus says they can't stand up against the attack dogs in the coalition.

Well, I've got news for the Labor Party. This is now so deeply embedded in your political DNA that you are a bigger problem for the human rights and the natural justice rights of people seeking asylum in this country then the Liberal Party is. You have been for decades. Hang your heads in shame. You should hang your heads in collective shame because you have persecuted people. You have destroyed countless lives. I well recall visiting Manus Island when the decision was made to cut off the food, the electricity, the medical supports and even the drinking water from people in the Lombrum detention centre. I well recall that decision being made, and I well recall the enthusiastic support of the Labor Party for that decision. I well recall the days when mandatory immigration detention wasn't a thing in Australia, and I well recall who introduced it. The Labor Party introduced it.

There is a historic current of racism that underpins the way the Australian Labor Party operates. We are seeing that today—because we know that overwhelmingly, perhaps even exclusively, the people that are going to be impacted by this legislation do not have white skins. They are people of colour. We all know that that is the case.

We have all watched the shameful history of the Australian Labor Party. They are prepared to trample all over the rule of law, they are prepared to trample all over natural justice and they are prepared to trample all over procedural fairness. I say to the Labor Party: we see through you. We see you, and we see through you. We understand that you are historically worse for people who are seeking asylum in this country than is the coalition. Almost all of the most egregious breaches of people's legal and human rights and almost all of the most draconian laws that have been introduced, that discriminate disgracefully against people who are seeking asylum in this country, have been introduced by Labor governments. We see you, we know what you're like and we will fight you every step of the way. We will continue to fight for justice, for procedural fairness and for the legal rights of people seeking asylum.

Sue Lines (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the amendment standing in the name of Senator McKim, as moved by Senator Shoebridge, be agreed to.

Sue Lines (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question now is that the amendment as moved by Senator Chisholm be agreed to.

Question agreed to.

Original question, as amended, agreed to.

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

by leave—Could I ask that the Greens's opposition to Senator Chisholm's amendment to the motion be noted.

Sue Lines (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator McKim. The Greens's opposition is noted.