Migration Amendment (Prohibiting Items in Immigration Detention Facilities)

Second reading speech Australian Labor Party • MP • 07 Feb 2018

Giles says Labor cannot support the bill as it stands because it gives the ministerThe minister can make the list of banned items under this bill, so their decision matters directly to what detainees may keep or lose. overly broad powers, weakens privacy and autonomy for detainees, and lacks enough evidence to justify the changes. He wants the government to amend it first, including narrowing the prohibited items powers and limiting searches and dog use.

“So I say to government members: have regard to principle and have regard to the evidence, and do not proceed with this bill until these matters are attended to.”

Second reading speech Australian Labor Party • MP • 31 Aug 2020

Andrew Giles says Labor cannot support the bill because it gives the ministerThe minister can make the list of banned items under this bill, so their decision matters directly to what detainees may keep or lose. overly broad powers, is unnecessary, and does not show that existing laws are insufficient. He argues the government should go back and bring forward a better, more targeted bill.

“This bill is unnecessary. While it has had a long journey back to this place, in the form in which it has arrived today it cannot be supported. The minister needs to go back to the drawing board. He needs to clearly state his case, the problem he needs to solve and why present powers are insufficient for that purpose. He needs to have regard to the evidence, to state the facts and to listen to the experts.”

Second reading speech Australian Greens • MP • 06 Feb 2018

Adam Bandt says the Greens oppose the bill because he sees it as giving the home affairs minister excessive power to confiscate detainees' possessions and further punish people in immigration detention who have committed no crime.

“I and the Australian Greens will be opposing the Migration Amendment (Prohibiting Items in Immigration Detention Facilities) Bill 2017. This bill is nothing more than another power grab by an out-of-control Minister for Home Affairs. This bill really makes you think. How much lower can this government go? More pointedly, is there any room left to go any lower? For this mob, it's not enough to lock up in torture camps people who've committed no crime. It's not enough to send them back to the war-torn places that they fled. Now we're going to strip them of something else. This government's not satisfied with taking away their dignity, their mental and physical health, their freedom and their liberty. It's now taking away their possessions as well.”

Second reading speech Australian Greens • MP • 31 Aug 2020

Bandt opposes the bill, saying it gives the ministerThe minister can make the list of banned items under this bill, so their decision matters directly to what detainees may keep or lose. sweeping powers to strip detainees of phones and other items that let them communicate with the outside world. He argues this is a cruel attack on the rights, health and liberty of people who have committed no crime, so the bill should be rejected.

“The government, through this bill, admits that it is so ashamed of what it is doing to people in immigration detention that it will now no longer let them tell the rest of the world what is happening inside immigration detention. Well, government, if you've done nothing wrong, you should have nothing to hide and you should have nothing to fear from people who are in immigration detention having the right to possess the same kinds of items that the rest of us in the outside world have, including items that allow them to communicate and connect with people in the outside world and that, in many instances, may be the difference between having a healthy life and being extraordinarily unhealthy, to the point where they may tragically choose to attempt to take their own life, as we have seen in too many instances in immigration detention. This is a matter of people's health. For many people, it will be a matter of life and death. It's a matter of fundamental human rights and liberties. This bill should be opposed.”

Second reading speech Australian Greens • MP • 25 Nov 2024

Bandt opposes the bill, saying it gives the ministerThe minister can make the list of banned items under this bill, so their decision matters directly to what detainees may keep or lose. sweeping power to ban ordinary items in detention and could be used to stop people exposing what is happening inside these facilities. He argues it is an overreach that repeats a bill Labor itself opposed in 2020 and risks human rights violations.

“This bill, the Migration Amendment (Prohibiting Items in Immigration Detention Facilities) Bill 2024, will have sweeping powers. It will allow the minister to determine whether a thing is a prohibited item in an immigration detention facility. That is the language: a 'thing'. If the minister thinks that this thing 'might be a risk to the health, safety or security of persons in the facility, or to the order of the facility', they can ban it. The bill explicitly says that mobile phones, SIM cards and any device that can connect to the internet can be determined to be prohibited things. How is it that something that is simply the ability to connect with the outside world is somehow a threat? It could only be considered a threat if Labor had something to hide about what is happening in these detention facilities.”

Second reading speech Independent • MP • 02 Sept 2020

Haines opposes the bill and says she will not support it, arguing it is driven by fear and ignores humane alternatives to detention. She says it would worsen conditions for detainees and expand intrusive powers without proper evidence or safeguards.

“This bill misses humane opportunities such as these. The concessions being negotiated to this bill ignore opportunities such as these. This bill is motivated by fear. I will not be supporting this bill—I will not support any bill like this—and I urge my colleagues to follow suit.”

Second reading speech Independent • MP • 25 Nov 2024

Haines opposes the bill and says she will vote against it because it gives the ministerThe minister can make the list of banned items under this bill, so their decision matters directly to what detainees may keep or lose. overly broad powers over detainees' phones and other items, risks silencing people in detention, and has been rushed through without proper scrutiny. She also argues that detention is not prison and that the government has ignored wider human rights recommendations while taking a punitive approach.

“If this bill sounds familiar, it's because we have seen it before—not from a Labor government but from the former coalition Morrison government. Indeed, it was debated in 2020. I opposed that very similar bill then in 2020, and I oppose the bill before us today for similar reasons, which I'll address shortly. But before I do that, I want to note that in 2020 Labor opposed the bill. So why, you are likely wondering, are they now supporting it? Why the change of heart?”

Second reading speech Independent • MP • 07 Feb 2018

Andrew Wilkie opposes the bill and says it would further erode legal rights in immigration detention by expanding ministerial bans, strip searches, warrantless searches and dog searches. He argues it pushes detention closer to unlawful, indefinite punishment outside proper legal safeguards, and says he will not support it.

“This bill is unsupportable, and I certainly won't be supporting it. No wonder. Just in the last 12 months, I think I've counted five different episodes where the United Nations has criticised Australia. Some people in this place will say: 'Who cares about the United Nations? They're discredited.' Well, they are not discredited. At the end of the day, the United Nations is the best we've got. It is the one body where the community of nations can come together and speak as one. For this country to have been criticised, on my count, five times in the last 12 months because of our response to asylum seekers is simply unconscionable. In the last 12 months we've had the head of the UNHCR, no less, criticise Australia. We've had the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights criticise Australia. About a year ago a United Nations team in Papua New Guinea criticised our response to asylum seekers. The UN Human Rights Council criticised Australia's response to asylum seekers. Quite recently the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination criticised Australia.”

Second reading speech Independent • MP • 31 Aug 2020

Andrew Wilkie opposes the bill and says it is part of a cruel, illegal approach to asylum seekers that treats detention centres like jails and detainees like criminals. He says the bill is not amendable and should be voted down.

“I will end my remarks there. This bill does not have my support. It didn't in 2017, it doesn't tonight, and it never will.”