Anthony Chisholm (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Regional Development) 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 motion be divided so that the question that the bill proceed without formalities is put separately. I indicate that I wish to make a contribution on the motion that the bill may proceed without formalities.

Marielle Smith (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That's fine, Senator Shoebridge. You are able to speak.

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

The motion is that this bill proceed without formalities, and let's be clear what we're dealing with here. We're dealing with the Migration Amendment (2026 Measures No. 1) Bill 2026. This bill is designed to give the home affairs minister pretty much an open discretion, not subject to parliamentary oversight, to stop people who have a valid visa to enter Australia from coming—to put them in the deep freeze for six months.

It's been said by the government—by Labor, the coalition and One Nation—that they want to come together to rush this legislation through and do it without formalities. What does 'without formalities' mean? This is a bill that was rushed through the other place in barely 24 hours. It was warm from the photocopier when they voted on it downstairs. It's not gone to public consultation. It hasn't even sat the usual five days on the Notice Paper before it proceeds. Having been rushed through in the other place, with a guillotine vote from the government to ram it through, it has then been introduced here without formalities.

The government will say, 'Oh, no, we had an inquiry on this.' I was in that inquiry. The inquiry last night was initiated with barely three hours notice, no public submissions were received and no stakeholders were invited to contribute to the inquiry. We had almost no notice and an hour and a half to ask Home Affairs questions about the bill. What did we find out about the bill in that rushed, pretend, faux inquiry that we had? We found out that the government clearly intends to use this rushed legislation to shut the door to 7,200 Iranians who currently have valid visas to come to this country—tourism visas, business visas, perhaps some future spouse visas or family reunion visas, maybe grandparents coming out to see their grandkids. They have been vetted and screened by Home Affairs, and they have legitimate reasons to come to this country.

Do you know what? Yesterday, when the government introduced this bill, the Labor Party opened their media for the day by putting out, effectively, photo opportunities and by running the emotional argument that the Minister for Home Affairs had granted five emergency humanitarian visas to some of the brave Iranian women footballers who have been in this country and potentially face persecution if they return—not just persecution from their own regime; if they're sent back to Iran, they could literally be killed by US bombs or Israeli bombs. Thankfully, five brave Iranian women, who have shown such courage, were saved from that fate. They were saved from that fate because of an urgent application and an urgent resolution so that they could have a humanitarian visa to stay in this country. Since then, another member of the team has been saved from that fate.

Of course those brave Iranian women should have been protected, and of course I am so glad—and I think I am joined by millions of Australians—that those Iranian women have had the chance to apply for a humanitarian visa and be given protection by this country. But you know what? To Labor's utter shame, on the very same day they did that they brought legislation into this parliament—cheered on by their mates in the war parties coalition of Labor, the coalition and One Nation—that they want to ram through without formalities in the other place and want to ram through without formalities here to literally shut the door on 7,200 other Iranians who have valid visas to come to this country. Why are they doing it? Why are they shutting the door on those 7,200? Because they don't want any of those Iranians to come here and do exactly what the Iranian women's football team have done and make an application onshore to be granted asylum and to be granted protection.

Having done the photo opportunity with the Iranian women footballers, having run the media in the morning about Labor coming out and protecting this handful of brave Iranian women, they used the smokescreen of that to, that same day, shut the door to 7,200 other Iranians. You couldn't get more obvious, base hypocrisy than we got from Labor in doing that. To be clear, on the exact process that the Iranian women footballers went through onshore—able to make an application for asylum and granted asylum—Labor said, 'Okay, we've done that for six, but no more.' To the other 7,200 Iranians, who otherwise could have come to this country and made a claim onshore, they say, 'Absolutely not,' shutting the door.

As you would expect, the three war parties in this place—Labor, the coalition and One Nation—all support the war, this illegal war, and its bombing and killing, which is creating much of the grief and the fear in Iran, together with a brutal regime of course. Having supported the war to create the crisis, all three of the war parties are now supporting Labor ramming this legislation through. We have a very real fear—as does the refugee sector and those Australians across the country who expect more from the government—that Labor, the coalition and One Nation are going to join together tomorrow to guillotine this legislation and ram it through without debate, like they're no doubt going to shut down this debate as soon as I sit down. They'll shut down this debate so that anyone who doesn't agree with the three war parties, and their toxic mixture of global organised violence led by Donald Trump and global organised bastardry against people seeking asylum, can't make a contribution on this bill. That's what's going to happen as sure as night follows day.

So what I say on behalf of my party, the Greens, and on behalf of the millions of Australians who are looking at the disaster in Iran; the disaster in the Middle East; the conflict spilling over the borders; the hundreds of thousands of people in Lebanon who have been made homeless because of yet another vicious, illegal attack by Israel; the hundreds killed in Beirut and southern Lebanon; the thousands killed in Iran and the thousands more injured; and the more than a hundred schoolgirls who were killed by a US missile strike in the first 24 hours of the illegal, brutal war that Labor, the coalition and One Nation support—the Greens say, in part to give voice to those millions of Australians who want a different country and a different world, that we're not going to let this be guillotined and rammed through without any scrutiny or debate.

We see you. Again, we see you. We see the three of you—Labor, the coalition and One Nation—coming up with your plans to be cruel to people who have come here to seek asylum and coming up with your plans to back in the US forever wars, and in this moment doing them both together. You support the illegal war. You support the bombing and the killing in Iran, and then, when you think: 'Oh, my goodness. That might actually create refugees. That might create people who need protection from the bombing and killing,' which you actually support and endorse, you say: 'Australia is not going to give anyone protection. We'll just revert to cruelty mode A,' which is your standard operating procedure. Labor had a choice at this moment.

An appalling humanitarian catastrophe started in the region with another US illegal war—an Israeli illegal war, the attacks on a Iran, the attacks on Lebanon. We knew that there would be thousands and thousands displaced. In fact, Labor knows that there are likely to be thousands of Iranians applying for asylum if they can come into this country and apply for asylum under their visas. So what Labor could have done was look back into history—

Marielle Smith (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Shoebridge, I would just draw your attention to the debate being about the motion before us. So I ask you to draw your remarks back to the motion.

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

So the motion here is that this bill proceed without formalities, which is to cut out the public scrutiny and the parliamentary scrutiny of this. Why does Labor want no scrutiny, and why are they being joined by the coalition and One Nation? Why do the three war parties want no scrutiny? Why do they want to proceed without formalities? Because, when you lift the hood, look in and actually see what this bill is doing, it exposes the three war parties for what they are. It shows that Labor, the coalition and One Nation all have the same pattern. They all take the same approach in moments of crisis like this.

What Labor could have done, instead of trying to ram through this legislation, cut out the public and go to base-A cruelty to try and outflank One Nation in their race baiting and Islamophobia, is look back at what Bob Hawke did at the time of another international crisis. At the time of the Tiananmen Square massacre in China, there were tens of thousands of Chinese students in this country. Back then, Bob Hawke saw a humanitarian crisis and knew that it would be wrong to send people back into China, and he extended the refugee and humanitarian intake. Twenty thousand to 30,000 largely young Chinese students were given a chance to make a life in this country and were saved from being sent back to a regime that was likely to persecute them. He lifted the humanitarian intake for that year. That was an opportunity that Labor could have looked at. They could have looked to the example from 1989 and said, 'Actually, do you know what? There's a shred of decency in our past. We'll look to that decency and we'll make this moment a decent moment.' They could have lifted the humanitarian numbers by 7,200 to give those Iranians the same chance that we gave Chinese students in 1989.

But, instead of looking to Bob Hawke and instead of looking to that example of humanity and decency, Labor decided to look across the Pacific to Donald Trump and look at what he does with migrants—with Iranians who had come to the US seeking asylum. He'd been putting them on planes and sending them back to Iran in November, December and as late as January. That's what your mate Donald Trump has been doing. He's been sending Iranians back into Iran, knowing that they've made claims for protection in the United States. He's been sending them back into the regime. Having sent those Iranians back, you are joining Donald Trump in supporting the bombing and killing of them.

You had a choice. Labor had a choice, right? They could have looked to an example of decency and humanity, or they could have taken Donald Trump's war, killing, brutal, racist approach, and they chose Donald Trump. You chose the racism. In this case, you chose Islamophobia. You chose to try and make One Nation your mate at the expense of 7,200 Iranians who had visas who could have had the chance to come here for a life free from violence and persecution—free from your mate Donald Trump's bombs, free from your mate Benjamin Netanyahu's bombs, free from the killing. You could have given them that chance, and you chose not to.

I said before that we see you and we see how you act, with the coalition, trying to out-bastard One Nation time after time. We see you, and, increasingly, the Australian public sees you. And this country, the core heartbeat of this country, is so much better than you—so much better than any of you in the three war parties. Our country wants peace. Our country wants to see the world as a place we engage with on principles. They want our neighbours to be not our enemies but our friends, our colleagues and our workmates. That's the world that I think the core beating heart of Australia wants, and, every time you do this, you betray those core Australian values.

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

I move:

That the question be now put.

Marielle Smith (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the motion moved by Senator Chisholm be agreed to.

Marielle Smith (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the bill proceed without formalities.

Marielle Smith (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will now put the question that the bill be read a first time.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

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

by leave—I move:

That the provisions of paragraphs (5) to (8) of standing order 111 not apply to the bill, allowing it to be considered during this period of sittings.

I table a statement of reasons justifying the need for this bill to be considered during these sittings and seek leave to have the statement incorporated into Hansard.

Leave granted.

The statement read as follows—

STATEMENT OF REASONS FOR INTRODUCTION AND PASSAGE IN THE 2026 AUTUMN SITTINGS

MIGRATION AMENDMENT (2026 MEASURES NO.1) BILL 2026

Purpose of the Bill

The Migration Amendment (2026 Measures No. 1) Bill 2026 would amend the Migration Act 1958 to provide the Minister with a personal power to make an 'arrival control determination', following written agreement from the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, that would temporarily restrict travel to Australia by a class or classes of temporary visa holders.

The amendments in the Bill would allow temporary restrictions on arrival of certain classes of temporary visa holders in Australia, where this is necessary to protect the integrity and sustainability of Australia's immigration system, including when events or circumstances outside Australia mean that there is an increased risk that certain classes of temporary visa holders will not depart Australia when their visas cease to be in effect.

Reasons for Urgency

Introduction and passage of the Bill in the 2026 Autumn sittings is required to respond to the changing risk environment overseas.

Question agreed to.