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senate vote 2011-09-21#2
Edited by
mackay staff
on
2014-03-13 14:45:03
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Title
Motions — Asylum Seekers- Motions - Asylum Seekers - Malaysia deal
Description
<p class="speaker">Eric Abetz</p><p>I ask that general business notice of motion 444 standing in my name for today relating to the proposed legislation relating to asylum seekers be taken as a formal motion.</p> <p class="speaker">Stephen Parry</p><p>Is there any objection? Senator Hanson-Young, are you denying leave?</p> <p class="speaker">Sarah Hanson-Young</p><p>I seek leave to move an amendment to the motion.</p> <p class="speaker">Stephen Parry</p><p>Can we wait until we put the motion. There is no objection to the motion being taken as formal. Senator Abetz.</p> <p class="speaker">Eric Abetz</p><p>I move:</p><p class="italic">That the Senate rejects the Government's attempts to provide inadequate protections for asylum seekers in its proposed legislation to resurrect its Malaysian asylum seeker deal.</p> <p class="speaker">Sarah Hanson-Young</p><p>I seek leave to move an amendment to motion 444.</p> <p class="speaker">Stephen Parry</p><p>Is leave granted?</p> <p class="speaker">Eric Abetz</p><p>I invite Senator Hanson-Young to indicate her amendment prior to seeking leave. That might assist the process.</p> <p class="speaker">Sarah Hanson-Young</p><p>I am seeking leave to flag the amendment.</p> <p class="speaker">Stephen Parry</p><p>Rather than having leave denied, we could do with it this way. If Senator Hanson-Young seeks leave to indicate to the chamber the nature of the amendment—</p> <p class="speaker">Sarah Hanson-Young</p><p>I seek leave to be able to move the amendment.</p> <p class="speaker">Stephen Parry</p><p>Leave has been sought just to move the amendment. Is leave granted?</p><p>Leave not granted.</p> <p class="speaker">Sarah Hanson-Young</p><p>Pursuant to contingent notice and at the request of the Leader of the Australian Greens, Senator Bob Brown, I move:</p><p class="italic">That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent me from moving an amendment to the motion.</p> <p class="speaker">Stephen Parry</p><p>I am advised by the Clerk there is no contingent motion that you can act upon. Senator Hanson-Young, can I deal with Senator Ludwig, who wishes to make a short statement, and then we will come back to the matter.</p> <p class="speaker">Joe Ludwig</p><p>by leave—I want to assist in the proceedings this afternoon. I know leave usually has to be given before the amendment. That is the usual thing. However, I have from this position often asked what the nature of the amendment is because it then informs me as to whether I will decide to grant leave or not. In that instance you can, in my view seek leave, and I would give it, to explain the amendment before we then end up in a position of suspending standing orders to deal with it. This is a way to expedite the arrangement and allow the opposition, or the government for that matter, to hear what the amendment may be and consider it.</p> <p class="speaker">Stephen Parry</p><p>Thank you, Senator Ludwig. I did give that opportunity to Senator Hanson-Young but I think she was fairly determined on her course of action. Is that correct? Would you like to revisit this and take the opportunity of explaining, by leave, the nature of your amendment?</p> <p class="speaker">Sarah Hanson-Young</p><p>I am happy to explain, by leave, the nature of my amendment and then seek leave.</p> <p class="speaker">Stephen Parry</p><p>Leave is granted for you to do that for two minutes.</p> <p class="speaker">Sarah Hanson-Young</p><p>The amendment would replace the words after 'Senate' with 'calls on the government and the opposition to uphold Australia's obligations to the 1951 Refugee Convention'.</p> <p class="speaker">Eric Abetz</p><p>The amendment negates the whole motion.</p><p>Leave not granted.</p> <p class="speaker">Sarah Hanson-Young</p><p>Pursuant to contingent notice and at the request of the Leader of the Australian Greens, I move:</p><p class="italic">That such standing orders be suspended as would prevent me moving the amendment to the motion.</p> <p class="speaker">Stephen Parry</p><p>Senator Hanson-Young, I am advised by the Clerk that there is no specific contingent motion for you to do that. You can move to suspend standing orders but you would need then the concurrence of an absolute majority of the Senate to do that. You can move to suspend standing orders but not pursuant to a contingent motion.</p> <p class="speaker">Sarah Hanson-Young</p><p>I move:</p><p class="italic">That standing orders be suspended.</p><p>I would like to be able to move the amendment to this motion because we know that the motion put forward by Senator Abetz is pure hypocrisy. We know that the government has a bad plan when it comes to dumping vulnerable people in Malaysia. We know it contravenes the 1951 Refugee Convention. We also know that the opposition's plan of dumping vulnerable people in Nauru would contravene the 1951 convention.</p><p>It is time that both the government and the opposition recognise that the Australian people are fed up with the hypocrisy and with the dirty arguments that not just put the lives of vulnerable people in harm's way but trash Australia's international obligations. We know it is time we had a proper process for dealing with these issues. Why do we drag out the lives of some of the world's most vulnerable people just because there is a political standoff, a squabble, between the government and the opposition? Neither side is standing up for our obligations. Neither side is doing what they should be doing, which is to ensure that our domestic laws concur with our international obligations.</p><p>It is absolutely paramount that we do what it is we have signed up to do: assess the claims of asylum seekers here on the Australian mainland. It is what the majority of Australians want; it is the cheapest option; it is the most humane one; and, above all else, it is legal. We should just get on with it. There is absolute rank hypocrisy in this motion, as put forward by Senator Abetz. It does not do anything to add any substance or standard to the level of debate we are seeing not just in this place but in the other place as well. How about the Leader of the Opposition and the Leader of the House actually stand up for what Australia signed up for 60 years: protecting the rights of vulnerable people when they arrive on our doorstep, doing what it is that we should be doing. Stop trashing Australia's international obligations just because of the politics of the day.</p><p>We know that onshore processing would be a much simpler option. It would be cheaper, it would be more humane and it is popular. We know that the government does not support Nauru. We know that the opposition does not support Malaysia. We know that offshore processing is bad policy: it is morally wrong; it is illegal; and it is expensive. So just give it up.</p><p>There is one thing that is actually right in this debate. It is that both sides are right about the rank hypocrisy of the other. Both sides have sold out. Both sides are participating in a debate based on hypocrisy and backflips. There is absolutely no substance to the issues that go to the heart of the needs of asylum seekers. We should be doing what it is we said we would do under the convention we signed 60 years ago. The question and the amendment that I am putting to the Senate is: will we stand by the convention we signed 60 years ago? Under the government's plan we will not. Under the opposition's plan we will not. Is it that both sides are prepared to shred our international reputation, shred Australia's value of a fair go and throw away 60 years of commitment to the refugee convention? That is exactly what both sides want. That is the effect of both proposals—Malaysia and Nauru.</p><p>What a sad point we have got to in this debate when we are being forced to choose between dumping children in Malaysia and dumping children in Nauru. There is a much better solution; it is an Australian option. It means assessing the claims of asylum seekers onshore here on the mainland, as most Australians would like us to do. It is cheaper, more humane and it is legal. That is what this amendment is about: asking both the coalition and the government to do exactly what we have already signed up to do, which is to abide by our obligations under the 1951 refugee convention. If you are not interested in that, why not just say so? Stop playing with the lives of vulnerable people. Stop pretending that you care when clearly you do not. All you care about is the political points you are trying to make on the way through. And thank heavens the Australian people are wise enough to see through the hypocrisy and the sell-outs and ensure a better solution. <i>(Time expired)</i></p> <p class="speaker">Eric Abetz</p><p>It seems that the Australian Greens are as confused about the standing orders of this place as they are in relation to their immigration and asylum-seeker policy stance. We heard from the Greens that we are dealing with allegedly the most vulnerable people, those who are paying literally thousands and thousands of dollars to people-smugglers to come to Australia. They freely enter Indonesia, they travel there freely with no problems at all and then pay a criminal people-smuggler to get them to Australia, having thousands of dollars at their disposal. Somehow, they are the most vulnerable people.</p><p>Forget those who have been rotting in refugee camps around the world, not for weeks or months but for over a decade. There are literally millions of them all around the world. We in Australia need to ask ourselves this one question: do we want to be engaged in the humane resettlement of refugees? Overwhelmingly, the answer is yes, as it should be. The next question is: to whom out of the millions of refugees in the world should we be giving priority? We in the coalition make no bones about the fact that we do not believe priority should be given to the rich, who can afford to pay criminals to force their way into Australia and who turn a blind eye to our obligation to those who are sitting in camps in Somalia, in Kenya and in other places in Africa, where they have been for well over a decade.</p><p>For somebody like me, who works with my local refugee communities in Hobart, to be told I am a hypocrite on this is quite offensive. When you hear their tales of having been in refugee camps for up to 15 years you get an understanding of why these particular refugees are so offended when priority is being given to the criminal boat-people smuggling operations. That is why the coalition put in place a policy that worked to stop this criminal activity, which also puts lives at risk. We stopped it with the Nauru solution. The Labor Party deliberately dismantled that policy, and guess what: the influx of boats occurred and the influx of illegal arrivals re-entered the Australian scene. This disrupted the orderly resettlement of refugees into Australia that we had, in cooperation with the United Nations. We had a policy which worked. Labor dismantled it. Now, seeing the folly of their ways, Labor are trying to make themselves more hairy-chested than we as a coalition were in this space. We say to them that their Malaysia solution, where people can be caned for disobeying orders in Malaysia, is inhumane. The Labor Party themselves set the benchmark for offshore processing that the country should be a signatory to the UN convention. Well, Nauru is; Malaysia is not. All we have done is suggest to the government that they should adopt the Nauru solution, the Manus Island solution, and dump the Malaysia solution, where we were going to be giving them one of our illegal entrants for five of theirs, a swap which, in anybody's language, was not good. In relation to today's motion, it is simply calling on the Senate to reject:</p><p class="italic">... the Government's attempts to provide inadequate protections for asylum seekers in its proposed legislation to resurrect its Malaysian asylum seeker deal.</p><p>I would have thought the Australian Greens would support such a motion, but of course it is splitting them away from their Labor alliance partners and they now, undoubtedly in a deal with Labor, are trying to scuttle around to come up with an excuse as to why not to support this motion. As a result, the hapless Senator Hanson-Young has been called in to move an amendment which seeks to negate this. We say the Malaysia solution is not a solution, because it is inhumane and in breach of our international obligations, whereas the Nauru solution is workable, proven and humane. <i>(Time expired)</i></p> <p class='motion-notice motion-notice-truncated'>Long debate text truncated.</p>- The majority voted against a [http://www.openaustralia.org/senate/?gid=2011-09-21.110.4 motion] introduced by Liberal Senator [http://publicwhip-test.openaustraliafoundation.org.au/mp.php?mpn=Eric_Abetz&mpc=Senate&house=senate Eric Abetz]. This means that the motion was rejected.
- The motion was:
- ''That the Senate rejects the Government's attempts to provide inadequate protections for asylum seekers in its proposed legislation to resurrect its Malaysian asylum seeker deal.''[1]
- References
- * [1] Read more about the Malaysia deal on [http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-07-25/malaysia-signs-refugee-deal/2809512 ABC News]. For more detailed information, see the Senate Standing Committees on Legal and Constitutional Affairs's inquiry into [http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Legal_and_Constitutional_Affairs/Completed%20inquiries/2010-13/malaysiaagreement/index Australia's arrangement with Malaysia in relation to asylum seekers].
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