2016-09-12
Senator Nick McKim
It's been a busy time since the election, to say the least. It's been great to reconnect and hit the ground running with our fantastic MPs and staff (we miss you Rob!).
I've got some big jobs in front of me in the Attorney-General portfolio, including fighting off the rabble of self-styled freedom warriors who want to destroy the integrity of Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.
But I want to take this opportunity to talk about the immigration portfolio. It was an honour to be given this portfolio last month, and I know that I have some big shoes to fill. For close to a decade, Sarah Hanson-Young has been a courageous and passionate advocate for refugees and people seeking asylum, often in the face of appalling abuse.
She's given her heart and soul to the cause, and I will do everything I can to continue her legacy inside and outside Parliament. There will be no lessening of effort, passion or focus, or softening of policy. We will keep doing all that we can to see the camps on Manus and Nauru closed, and bring the people in them to Australia so we can care for them in line with our moral and legal obligations.
I spent time recently in Sydney and Melbourne meeting some of the key advocates for people seeking asylum and refugees, including the Australian Human Rights Commission, the Refugee Action Collective, the Refugee Council, the Human Rights Law Centre and the NSW Greens Refugee Working Group. The passion and commitment of so many great people is inspiring, and I look forward to working with all of them, and many more, to achieve the things we all want.
It's worth pointing out that the Government's so-called border protection regime is crumbling before our eyes.
The Manus Island detention centre has effectively been declared illegal by the PNG Supreme Court, and has to close. But our hapless and hopeless Immigration Minister Peter Dutton is totally bereft of a response. He has outlined no timeline for closure, and has no plan for what to do with the people he is currently detaining there. He is downplaying or simply ignoring the horrific recent revelations of abuse and neglect in the Nauru Files.
Desperate people are continuing to put their lives at risk at sea because the government has failed to offer a safe pathway for them to seek asylum in our country.
This is a policy failure almost without precedent in Australian history. It has been delivered by a government which does not believe that people seeking asylum deserve respect and humane treatment, and instead should be subject to arbitrary punishment and indefinite detention. And they have been backed to the hilt by Labor.
On the first day of the new Parliament, I moved a motion calling for a Royal Commission into Australia's immigration detention system. Disgracefully but unsurprisingly, Labor voted against this motion, no doubt because of its own shameful history in this area.
While we will always focus on closing the camps, we need to shine the disinfectant of sunlight onto the human rights abuses and neglect that is occurring offshore and in centres in Australia.
It took Prime Minister Turnbull just 12 hours after the airing of shocking footage from Don Dale to quite rightly call a Royal Commission. There is far more evidence that people in immigration detention facilities are being systematically abused, yet to date we have had nothing but indifference from the PM.
We've still got a lot of work to do, and I look forward to sharing the journey with you. One day we'll end one of the most shameful periods in our country's history, and we'll celebrate accordingly along with many other Australians. Go Greens!