Consideration of Legislation

David Shoebridge

I seek leave to move a motion relating to consideration of the Home Affairs Legislation Amendment (2025 Measures No. 1) Bill 2025 as circulated.

Leave not granted.

Pursuant to contingent notice standing in the name of Senator Waters, I move:

That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent me moving a motion to provide for the consideration of a matter, namely a motion to give precedence to a motion relating to a consideration of the Home Affairs Legislation Amendment (2025 Measures No. 1) Bill 2025.

The government and the coalition have agreed to ram through the Home Affairs Legislation Amendment (2025 Measures No. 1) Bill 2025 which is a bill to strip natural justice, a fundamental right, from asylum seekers and whomever else the government chooses to deport to Nauru.

The government has run the argument that it needs to be rammed through this week because it is urgent. I can tell you we had a three-hour committee hearing in relation to this bill last night. Officials from Home Affairs came and they provided their case for urgency, and it was demolished—utterly demolished. I'll give credit to Senator Cash, who picked apart the argument for urgency that was presented by Home Affairs. In questioning from Senator Cash, Senator David Pocock and me, what Home Affairs eventually said was, 'Well, we'd like this legislation because we want to make sure that our current unfair processes, which we're going to continue regardless, cannot be legally challenged.' They also said that, regardless of whether the bill goes forward, they're going to continue to grind away and their actions will not change whether or not the bill passes. Then, when tested about whether there was any particular case that they desperately needed this legislation for, Home Affairs basically said no and that the cases that are either in the criminal courts or in the High Court are going to grind through and that they didn't need this legislation for any urgent matter dealing with cases.

Having established that so clearly, the question is: why is the coalition agreeing for Labor to remove the usual procedural checks and balances and ram through this legislation on a guillotine motion? I'll tell you what this legislation is: it is reckless, mean and nasty, and that's why Labor wants to ram it through on a guillotine without proper process.

We had the benefit, in the committee hearing last night, of submissions that came to us and that came to my office, and that would've come to any senator willing to ask, from across civil society—from the Law Council, from the ASRC and from multicultural communities. They were from across civil society and they all said the same thing—that the government's legislation is demonising multicultural communities, that it's targeting multicultural communities, that it's picking out multicultural communities and giving people who came to this country from another country fewer rights and doing it so visibly and deliberately. It is an attack on multiculturalism. They wanted the opportunity to tell the whole committee that in a proper hearing.

To its utter shame, Labor, even in establishing that committee, passed a resolution saying they didn't want submissions from civil society. It's so nasty that they're blocking their ears to the cries of multicultural communities that are saying: 'Stop doing this. Stop working with the coalition to ram through even more draconian laws.' Reckless, mean, nasty—that's what this piece of legislation is. So of course I move this motion and of course my Greens colleagues join me in moving this motion to ensure that this latest attack on multicultural Australia and on the rights of asylum seekers from Labor gets the scrutiny it needs.

What are you so afraid of? Are you so afraid of the fact that the public will see what you're doing? They are getting wise to Labor. In particular, multicultural communities are getting wise to Labor. They've now seen that it was Labor that put in place mandatory detention. They've now seen that it's Labor who's cut a secret deal with Nauru. I'll tell you what else we saw last night. We found out for the first time that this deal that Labor's cut with Nauru isn't a $400 million deal; it's a $2.5 billion deportation deal. Why did the government hide the truth about the scale of the deal? Why did we have to drag that out of you in a committee hearing? Tell the truth. Protect multicultural communities and stop doing these grubby deals with— (Time expired)

Jenny McAllister

I move:

That the question be now put.

Glenn Sterle

The question is that the motion be put as moved by the minister.