Forcing the Migration Act Through The House - 26 March 2024

26/3/24

Mr Speaker this is very very disappointing. My community wants to see compassion when we are approaching asylum seekers and we had great hope and faith that that's what we were going to see. A number of times I've said to people in my community I believe the Minister is doing his best given his own personal history I believe that he is driven by the compassion. Since then, that is really gone off. We got off to a good start but since then we have seen mandatory sentencing, some Draconian and knee-jerk reactions. I am open minded about this piece of legislation. Maybe it is needed, maybe it is compliant with our international human rights obligations. I would approach this in good faith but I first heard about it a few hours ago. I have had back-to-back meetings since then. I have one advisor and we are being asked to put it through today. This is too big an issue to deal with in this sort of timeframe. This is about humans this is about their futures. This morning coincidently we heard from some young people who have fallen through the cracks of our immigration system. We have seen their faces and understand that this is people's lives that we are dealing with. It is too big an issue to deal with like this. It also seems to me from what I can see so far today that it is not a new issue. The problem we are solving here has been around for a long time, that there is a group of people have no right to be in Australia but will not take steps to leave. This is not a problem that has appeared in the last week, it doesn't seem it needs a response within a couple of days. I find it very hard to see how this urgency is justified and I think it does not reflect on us well as a country if this is how we deal with really important issues that go to people's right to live their lives.

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