Dr THEOPHANOUS (4:56 PM) —I can only speak for five minutes on the Migration Amendment (Excision from Migration Zone) Bill 2001 because of what has happened: the debate has been cut off, unfortunately. I had very much to say and I had a lot of material prepared that I wanted to put before the parliament. I will be, it appears, the only member opposing this legislation.

Mr Hollis —The rest of us were gagged!

Dr THEOPHANOUS —The honourable member mentions that the rest of us were gagged. There were people gagged on both sides of the parliament. It is a disgrace that in these matters people are gagged and are not allowed to express their point of view. I noticed that in the Senate Senator Marise Payne broke down and cried when she was talking about this issue.

If ever there was legislation which will not deal with the issues, then the Migration Amendment (Excision from Migration Zone) Bill must take the cake. It is one of the silliest pieces of legislation ever put before this House and it actually makes a mockery of us as a nation. Imagine this: sections of our own country, parts of Australia, are going to the excised, pushed out and told, `The laws on migration do not apply here.' What other country has ever done anything like this? Can you imagine anything crazier and more absurd? Perhaps we should excise Tasmania and make laws that say, `The laws of Australia do not apply to Tasmania in terms of certain agricultural laws, or certain other laws.' What an absurd way to proceed to deal with a problem.

The Prime Minister said, in answer to my question today, that we are going to deal with the issue of making equity between those who are coming by boat and those who are processed overseas, because we do not need a different set of criteria. Minister, if that is what you want, let us legislate for a uniform set of criteria that we all agree on, not this ad hoc and absurd proposal whereby sections of our own country are excised and taken out of the migration law. Just because they have managed to push the Labor Party into agreeing with it, does that mean that what is being done here is right or that it is sensible? It is a nonsense proposition.

The bill does not even explain what is going to happen when these people are processed under the UNHCR. All right, the criteria are going to be tougher, but that does not mean that nobody will get through. What about the ones that get through, the ones that are actually classified, even under the tougher criteria, as refugees? What happens to them? Are we going to say, `Christmas Island is part of Australia but for the purposes of the Migration Act it is not part Australia. We are processing them under the UNHCR criteria but we are not going to let even the ones that pass these tougher criteria stay in Australia, we are going to send them off somewhere'? Is that what we are going to do? And if we are going to accept them under the tougher criteria, why doesn't the minister say so? Why doesn't he tell us what is going to happen to these people? There has never been such absurd legislation before this House.

The other point I mentioned earlier today in my question to the Prime Minister is about the Taliban, that terrible regime that we are all against, the supporter of terrorists and the regime which has made an outrageous interpretation of the Koran and of Islamic faith and which has ended up absolutely against all civilised concepts of human rights and against its own people, the Afghani people. Millions of Afghanis have been forced out of Afghanistan and a few of them—less than one in a thousand—have ended up in Australia. And what do we say? `We are against the Taliban regime; we will support the Americans in whatever they want to do against the Taliban regime, as we supported them against Saddam Hussein.' And I support that. But I say this: what about a bit of consistency? What about saying that people who have escaped these regimes need some of our sympathy and some of our concern? I ask the minister: how many Afghanis are you going to accept from the camps? Why don't you show some goodwill at least in that area? Why don't you show some more goodwill? Why don't you increase the quota of Afghanis? Why don't you increase the quota of refugees from overseas, if you are really genuine about dealing with the refugee problem? But, no, you want to reduce the overseas quota just because some people are arriving in boats.

I put it to you that if you want some consistency and equality in terms of the criteria then, rather than excising Christmas Island and these other islands, why don't we have a debate in this House about what the criteria ought to be and make them uniform criteria? But instead of that we have two sets of criteria, we are going to have part of Australia excised and we are going to say that this is a solution to a problem. I tell you what it is a solution to: it is a solution to political problems. It is simply an ad hoc attempt close to an election to deal with an issue when in fact we should be dealing with this issue in a much better way.

I have run out of time because I have only being given a few minutes. It is unfair that the only person opposing this bill in this chamber should be given such limited time. But other members wanted to speak from both sides who also have some concerns and they have expressed their concerns to me privately. Although there will be one vote against this bill, I can tell you there are many members in this chamber who share the concerns on the issues that I have raised.

Question resolved in the affirmative, Dr Theophanous dissenting.

Bill read a second time.