Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Industry and Innovation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

():  I move:

That this bill may proceed without formalities and be now read a first time.

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

I ask that the question be divided so that I can speak to the procedural part of the question. The proposal here is that this bill proceed without formalities. We're talking here about the home affairs bill which is designed to deport people from this country without even giving them the grace of natural justice.

Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Senator Shoebridge, could you please resume your seat. Minister?

Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Industry and Innovation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Just so I understand what gamesmanship is being engaged in here, the request has been that the motions be put separately, as I understand it. It's not open to Senator Shoebridge to then speak to that proposition. There's a question that you have to adjudicate on, as I understand it, first, which is: is it open to the chamber to put those questions separately? In the event that you decide that it is then it's a matter for me to then move the first proposition and then the second proposition.

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

For you?

Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Industry and Innovation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That's the way democracy works, Senator Shoebridge. We'll take a view about that, but I understand it's a matter for you, Deputy President, to consider at this stage, not for him to bloviate.

Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will admit this is not a circumstance that has come across my path before. I will take further advice. On the point of order, Senator McKim?

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

Yes, indeed. On the point of order raised by Senator Ayres, I firstly utterly reject any assertion that anything is being gamed here. That is an imputation of motive. That is contrary to 193(3) of the standing orders. I'll just make that point first. Secondly, I direct Senator Ayres to standing order 113(3), which makes it very clear that he's just made a complete fool of himself. He might as well have just announced to the chamber that he's got no idea about what is in the standing orders, because 113(3) makes it very clear that, when a motion such as the one that was moved by Senator Ayres is moved that contains two or more of the provisions that are set out in the preceding paragraphs of standing order 113, any senator may request that a motion be divided and the provision put as separate motions. In the context of the request by Senator Shoebridge, he is well entitled to debate the procedural part of that question, which is that the bill proceed without formalities. Senator Shoebridge was being completely relevant to that question.

Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As I said, I am going to take some further advice on this. I will ask the chamber to be patient for a few seconds while I do. As I believe, with effect to my actions rather than my words in this chamber, Senator Shoebridge does have the right to ask that the questions be put separately and he does have the right to speak to the first aspect of that. Senator Shoebridge, you have the call.

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

Thanks, Deputy President. It's always good to give a little bit of learning to Senator Ayres so he can go away and do his homework and try and be better at his job next time. The home affairs bill that the government is trying to ram through here without formalities is attached to other noxious legislation that this government has put through to strip away the rights of people seeking asylum and, actually, almost 100,000 people who are on bridging visas and don't have permanent visas in this country.

With this bill, they're trying to get the right to deport people to Nauru without ever telling them they're bringing the application to deport them, without giving them the right to be heard on the decision to deport them, and to apply to Nauru for a 30-year visa, without even giving them the right to be heard on that. And now they say that not only do they want to strip away those procedural rights from people seeking asylum but also they want to strip away the procedural checks and balances in this place by proceeding without formalities.

If you wanted to know what a hatchet job on the community looks like, you only had to take part in the committee—if you could. As soon as this Senate passed a resolution forcing the government to have at least a two-hour inquiry on the bill, which the government has been resisting and resisting, the government-dominated committee then met with seven minutes notice, given by email, and decided to use the government's numbers in the committee to have the two-hour inquiry refuse to hear any witnesses from the community, refuse to hear witnesses from the refugee sector, refuse to hear legal advocates and to hear only from Home Affairs.

So, not only is this government showing gross disrespect to people seeking asylum; they're showing gross disrespect to the sector, who, I can tell you now, has a lot to say about this bill—about how it's yet another racist attack on asylum seekers by the Albanese government, how it's yet another attack on multiculturalism by this Albanese government, as they told you 12 months ago, when you stitched up another deal with the coalition. They told you that continuing to demonise asylum seekers and migrants and multicultural Australia would inflame the far right. They told you it would lead to racism. They told you it would lead to ugly politics against multicultural Australia. You didn't listen, and that's why we had the rallies last weekend.

And what have you done? Because you know that those voices will be critical, you're silencing them even from the two-hour committee that's been forced upon you by the Senate. Well, if you continue to ignore the voices of reason, the voices of decency, you will continue down your lowest-common-denominator pathway to pass laws that were even beneath the coalition when they were in government. That's what you're doing, yet again. You're silencing the very people you need to be listening to right now—people who want to protect multicultural Australia, people who want to ensure that migrants and people seeking asylum have rights and are respected in this country as genuinely equal partners in this country and as equal members of our community.

Instead, the Albanese Labor government sends up the likes of Senator Ayres to do that waffle, to try to attack us even speaking about it now. You want to not only silence the community, not only silence the sector, not only demonise multicultural Australia; you even want us to not be able to bell the cat here in the chamber and point out your grubby behaviour. That's what it is: it's grubby behaviour from the Albanese government, trying to slip this legislation through in the dark of night and hope nobody will notice.

You've got form on this as a government. That's the same grubby deal you did with Nauru. You sent Minister Burke off to Nauru to secretly negotiate a $400 million bribe to Nauru and sign the deal, and then you put out the trash on a Friday night: you released the details about it with one line from Minister Burke—no press release, no notice, no communication with the public, apart from a secretly uploaded, silently uploaded statement on the website. Do you know that we know more about this secret Nauru deal from a Facebook post from the Nauru government than we do from the Minister for Home Affairs? We know more about the expenditure of $400 million of Australian taxpayers money this year, and $70 million next year, from a Facebook post from the Nauru government than from the Albanese government, who's spending our money in cooking up this deal to deport people and show the gross unfairness of it.

So, do we want this question put separately? We bloody well do want this question put separately! I withdraw that, sorry, Deputy President. My enthusiasm got away with me. We do want this question put separately. And we reject the idea that you can ram this bill through without formalities. We reject the idea that the Albanese government can silence the sector and not hear from them in the inquiry. We reject the idea that you can demonise multicultural Australia and people seeking asylum. We reject the idea that you can strip away their rights to natural justice. And we will fight this every step of the way.

Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Industry and Innovation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the motion be now put.

Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the motion be put. A division having been called, as it is after 6.30 pm this matter will be deferred until tomorrow.

Debate adjourned.