Ms PLIBERSEK (1:47 PM) —I rise to draw the attention of the House to a visit undertaken by a group of young people last week to the parliament. They were young people from the group ChilOut. The visit involved three young Afghan people and a number of Australian students as well. During the visit they presented Senator Bartlett and me with a petition about the detention of children. The very special thing about this petition is that it is actually signed just by young people. All of the signatories on the petition, which I have here in my hands—almost 5,000—are people under the age of 18, and they come from all over Australia. They say that they are deeply concerned about the treatment of children in immigration detention centres and that they believe that the detention of any child should, in accordance with the International Convention on the Rights of the Child, only be a last resort and for the shortest possible time and they are petitioning the parliament to amend the 1958 Migration Act to exclude children and their families from mandatory detention.

I think what is particularly special about this is that we have a very dedicated group of young people who really have a vision of the sort of country that they want to live in and the sort of community that they want to build. They have gone out and put many hours into collecting these thousands of signatures from all over the country. I commend their work.