I just want to reassure my colleague the member for Stirling that there is nothing simple about the Migration Amendment (Designated Unauthorised Arrivals) Bill 2006. It quite simply is a very unfair and extreme bill that seeks to radically change the way we process refugees and asylum seekers in this country.
It is for this reason that I join my colleagues on this side of the House and members in his party who, thankfully, are on the side of the member for Stirling and who have become very vocal and active in their own opposition to their government’s proposal of this bill. I join with them to oppose this migration bill, which effectively excises the Australian mainland from Australia’s migration zone for people arriving by sea without a visa.
There is much hope from our side, and from all other Australians who are also opposed to this bill, that government senators who are fundamentally opposed to this bill will vote against it in the Senate. But, if this bill is passed, it will see all asylum seekers who arrive by boat removed to a designated third country for processing. Nauru is obviously the country that is particularly favoured by this government. It is quite obvious that the government very much favours the continuation of Nauru as a centre for consolidating its offshore processing regime. People who are found to be refugees will remain offshore until resettlement in a third country is arranged. An interesting aspect of this bill’s intention is that the government intends to exclude Australia as one of those third countries for resettlement. That introduces an unprecedented aspect to our refugee policy. That aspect potentially condemns refugees or people who are seeking asylum to a state of existence akin to a twilight zone.
This bill is an extreme measure. There really is no other way to describe it than as an extreme measure taken by this government at a time when it was thought by many people—by many Australians and indeed by many members—that the government was prepared to restore some common decency to the processing of our unauthorised arrivals. We all remember that last year the government made some significant changes to its immigration policy. Indeed, the Prime Minister hailed those changes as an indication that he was prepared to listen not only to members of his government but also to public opinion. He indicated that he was prepared to listen and to make changes. A lot of those changes were driven by the very good work done by the member for Kooyong, the member for McMillan, the member for Pearce and others in this House and in the Senate. Those changes effectively forced the Prime Minister to make changes to the method and the manner in which the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs dealt with asylum seekers.
The amendments that were introduced last year meant that children in particular would not be placed in detention, that indefinite detention would cease and that case managed mental health would be introduced. More importantly, the Commonwealth Ombudsman became the Immigration Ombudsman and gained independent oversight of people in detention. This was particularly important given the litany of horror stories that were coming to light about the treatment of people in detention.
The bill before us will reverse these important steps taken to restore humanity and decency to detainees and their families, and it will most certainly destroy whatever is left of our reputation in the international community as a welcoming and compassionate country.
The government’s harsh, punitive and expensive detention policies have inflicted tremendous human misery and despair on many vulnerable people. As a result of these government policies, we have subjected many vulnerable people to incarceration in prison-like accommodation for long periods of time and in some cases years. These vulnerable people include children and people who have been suffering mental illness. Also, let us not forget that suffering has been inflicted on some of our own citizens. Let us not forget the experiences of Cornelia Rau and Vivian Solon.
It appeared that this inhumane, punitive and even paranoid treatment by immigration officials, who were of course responding to the requests of government policy, was to be a thing of the past, until the government pulled this latest stunt—and it is a stunt. The excision of the Australian mainland from its own migration zone and the intended removal of Australia as a settlement country are measures that have no precedent. They are so ridiculous and so extreme that you have to wonder just how far this government is prepared to go in the treatment of asylum seekers.
According to the parliamentary secretary who tabled the bill in this place, the government’s intention in presenting this bill is to remove lingering incongruities in the former legislation under which asylum seekers arriving by boat at excised places were subject to offshore processing while those whose boat arrived on the mainland were able to access onshore protection arrangements. The parliamentary secretary identified the arrival of the Papuan refugees as the reason for picking up these incongruities, and I quote him:
The landing on mainland Australia of a group of unauthorised boat arrivals from Indonesia in January 2006 highlighted this incongruous outcome.
We are therefore expected to believe that these amendments serve as some kind of finetuning to improve our immigration policies. That is not the case. This is a serious and reckless change to our immigration policy that will have serious consequences for Australia’s international reputation, so reasonable people would have to ask themselves: what drives this bill? I think the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs herself stated the real motives behind the proposed changes when she said:
Should there be people who would, were this change not made, seek to use the Australian mainland as a means of voicing protests about other countries—
they-
will not be able to do that. We will not allow that to happen.
I believe this is the real intention behind this bill. This government does not want people coming here and voicing concerns about human rights violations, especially when doing so might cause irritations and tensions of a foreign policy nature between Australia and our neighbours.
Refugees tend to flee homelands and regimes usually because there are issues of political or religious persecution, serious human rights violations and oppression in countries where there is no freedom of speech and there is plenty of censorship. Therefore it is not uncommon for refugees to seek refuge and asylum and to also take the opportunity, when they are in a democratic country like Australia, to express themselves, to voice their concerns and to basically tell their story. They do this in the hope that stronger democratic countries like Australia can use their influence to help remedy the situation back home. If we no longer want refugees to do that when they get to this country, because it may not suit our current foreign policy agendas, then what kind of a democracy do we uphold here and what kind of free speech are we as a democratic country advocating?
The government also tells us that this bill—and the member for Stirling made this point—is about border protection. My response to that is that I think it is a bit of a joke. Under this bill, Australia does not really have a border. What is really going on is that the government is trying to cover up for the fact that it was spooked—and we must not forget this, although it did happen some time ago—by the ferocity of Indonesia’s response to the granting of visas to the 43 Papuans and decided that it needed to take action to placate our neighbour. The fact that the government is prepared to sacrifice what few gains were made last year, vis-a-vis the humanitarian changes to our processing of refugees and asylum seekers, shows just how little it valued those changes in the first place.
It is important that Indonesia’s concerns be taken into consideration and, where possible, addressed—no-one would disagree with that. But the government’s response to Indonesia’s reaction, which has resulted in changing our laws, abrogating our responsibilities and sullying our reputation, is fundamentally wrong. I understand, like everybody else does, that we need to have good relations with Indonesia. Those good relations are essential to our overall national interests. But I do not believe, nor do my colleagues believe and nor do many other Australians believe, that we should sacrifice our principles and obligations on human rights in order to pursue so-called Realpolitik policies that in the long run further strip us of our international credibility and indicate our weakness in diplomacy. It is imperative that asylum seeker claims from any country be processed fairly, independently and free from any political or diplomatic interference.
Under this proposed law—and I know this has been said before, but it will be said again and I shall say it again in this House—Indonesia decides who comes to this country and the manner in which they come. This is quite a change from the Prime Minister’s assertions over the past few years that he—or Australia—decides who comes here and on which terms they come. There was no demand from Australians, the Australian public, for this legislation to be introduced—and that is the reality. The only demand for change came from Indonesia. History has taught us that policies of appeasement do not work—and this apparent acquiescence will be no different.
We should not be trying to deal with diplomatic tensions by essentially fiddling with and abdicating responsibility for the formulation of Australian law. Once you open this can of worms, there is no telling where it will end. A number of people and organisations have spoken out quite strongly against this bill. I want to refer to some of the comments that were made by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. In fact, I think good guidance on the appropriateness of this bill can be taken from the UNHCR’s commentaries on this bill.
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I look forward to listening to the member for Fisher’s response to that in his speech to this House following immediately after mine. I think we could take very good guidance from the UNHCR because, after all, they are the body charged with overseeing the processing of refugees on a global level.
In a statement released after the announcement of this bill, the UNHCR spokesperson Jennifer Pagonis expressed concerns that this offshore processing proposal was ‘dramatic’, ‘penalises refugees’ and is tantamount to contravening the refugee convention. Her specific concerns include the issue of reintroducing indefinite detention, which is undeniably a penalty for people who are seeking refugee status; the fact that Nauru, which is the government’s favoured place for establishing its ongoing offshore processing, is not a signatory to the Geneva convention on refugees; that this bill introduces diplomatic discrimination against refugees; and the fact that refugees processed offshore would be denied access to courts of law. All of this neglects our own responsibilities as a democratic, law-abiding country under the refugee convention. Finally Ms Pagonis was emphatic that asylum seekers should be able to live in humane conditions which respect not only the basic human rights of individuals but also the importance of the family unit. I am sure there is no disagreement that this bill will not accommodate the importance of maintaining a family unit. The UNHCR has indicated that this bill is so fundamentally flawed that it will try and block its passage.
Other organisations have also indicated their strong opposition to this bill. Amnesty International has condemned this bill, stating that the law skirts our international obligations to refugees and human rights. In addition, the Senate Legal and Constitutional Legislation Committee basically unanimously canned the bill. The government has totally ignored a report from the Senate committee, which included its own members. As I mentioned earlier, by kowtowing to Indonesia this government is sweeping away all the positive changes that it introduced last year in regard to the treatment of asylum seekers. We have a responsibility to treat all asylum seekers with fairness and to uphold our humanitarian obligations. This bill does not reflect these responsibilities, and nor is there any real, serious justification for it. Surely, at the end of the day, the minister cannot expect us to accept the incongruence argument, especially not when the fallout from this legislation will result in further damage to our international reputation in the long term—and be assured that our international reputation will be damaged further. If we pursue this legislation, Australia runs the risk of being seen as a selfish country bereft of any moral conscience.
If we abrogate our moral duties, as we do with this bill, then how can we speak out and advance the cause of human rights in other parts of the world? If we shirk our responsibilities to those fleeing oppression or violence, how can we claim to speak for the persecuted and oppressed in other nations? How can we encourage other countries to get their house in order when our approach to human rights is based on convenience and spin? It is the ultimate irony that, by the government’s actions of forcing this bill through the parliament, we will simply reinforce the negative perceptions of Australia by the very people we want to build better relations with in order to secure our national security and foreign policy interests. It reinforces the perception that we are a discriminatory, compassionless, unwelcoming nation—one that is dismissive of our moral and legal obligations and weak when it comes to defending our principles.
If we want to improve our relations with our neighbours, we should draw on the strength of our multicultural community and our migrant history, confident in the knowledge that we have a cohesive, caring society based on a fair go and equal opportunity. We should base our foreign policy strategies on this resource, on winning the confidence of our neighbours by showing that we truly respect the dignity of human beings. We should aspire to being a moral power that leads by example. Historically, Australia has rightly enjoyed a reputation as a peaceful, welcoming democracy. We have had the good fortune to have developed our nationhood in relative peace, without the civil and political unrest that has so marked other nations and so plagues, sadly, our smaller neighbours. Australians enjoy freedom of speech, political democracy, the rule of law and the protection of human rights. We also enjoy a political system built on accountability and transparency.
We have built this nation with, and as, migrants and refugees from around the world, seeking peace and a new and better life. So why are we compromising this reputation by adopting a practice of censorship and disregard for human rights? That is certainly what this bill threatens to do. I am disappointed and sad to say that under Prime Minister Howard we are no longer a welcoming country. Despite what the minister says about the level of refugee intake, we do what we do out of sheer obligation—and even that we do with reluctance and resentment. The fact that this government is prepared to renounce our responsibilities is proof of the lack of respect and disregard this government has for refugees in need.
In conclusion, Labor do not support this extreme and unjust change in immigration policy and will oppose this bill. We believe it creates an unnecessary, expensive and inhumane way for Australia to administer its refugee policy. We believe it is wrong to shirk our international responsibilities and change our laws to placate another country. Governments are increasingly judged by their stand on human rights, and more than ever the world needs those countries with power and international influence to behave in a responsible way, one that values respect for human rights above all else. Instead our country is playing political games with human rights. All commentators agree that successive waves of immigrants and refugees have made Australia richer and stronger. Some of our greatest achievers were refugees. We should be welcoming these people who seek out our country because they share and aspire to our democratic ideals. We should be welcoming them, not incarcerating them and their children. Certainly we should not be ignoring our responsibilities to them. We should have confidence in our country and in our hard-earned reputation as an honest broker and an honest player. This will serve our national interest better in the long run.
