In the dying days of the last week of Parliamentary sittings for 2024, and what is expected to be the last sitting before a federal election in 2025, Labor is shamefully trying to push through three pieces of legislation that will further seriously undermine human rights of refugees and non-citizens.
The anti-refugee trifecta includes a bill (Migration Amendment (Prohibiting Items in Immigration Detention Facilities) Bill 2024) that could see mobile phones banned from detention centres, a draconian measure that Labor opposed in 2020.
Despite clear findings by the High Court that only courts have any right to punish, Labor’s deportation bill (Migration Amendment Bill 2024), will entrench the discriminatory and racist provisions of the Migration Act that allows extra-judicial punishment of non-citizens.
The Bill would give the Government extraordinary powers to violate the human rights of refugees and non-citizens by deporting them to third countries, without any guarantee of their treatment in third countries.
The Bill gives the government power to reverse protection findings before deportation, making those refugees even more vulnerable to mistreatment in third countries.
The Bill gives the government sweeping powers, not just in regard to those affected by the NZYQ High Court case that ended indefinite detention, but anyone in Australia on a bridging visa. That includes the around 9000 people who are victims of the fast track system and those brought here from Manus and Nauru.
Labor is trying to avoid its international obligations by avoiding having “effective control” of any non-citizens deported to third countries. This is a transparent attempt to avoid the kind of scrutiny by Australian courts that ordered the government to evacuate sick children, who were at imminent risk of serious harm on Nauru.
Labor is also trying to get the numbers for the Entry Ban and Deportation Bill that stalled in the Senate earlier this year. This Bill seeks Trump-like powers to ban people from targeted countries from entering Australia and criminalise refugees for refusing to cooperate with their deportation.
The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights has already expressed serious reservations regarding the Deportation Bill but the government seems determined to press ahead with legislation that will breach their human rights.
“This is shameful politicking from Labor, playing political football with refugee lives in the run up to the federal election,” said Ian Rintoul, spokesperson for the Refugee Action Coalition, “Instead of standing up to Dutton’s scare-mongering about community safety, Labor is amplifying the scare-mongering. Instead of standing up for human rights, and the rule of law, Labor is trashing them.
“Anthony Albanese says he will leave ’nothing on the field’ in his bid to win the election for Labor. He really means there is nothing he won’t stoop to. But a race to the bottom, aping Dutton and Trump and bashing refugees, won’t guarantee an election win for Labor.”
For more information contact Ian Rintoul 0417 275 713
