Senator BARTLETT (4:01 AM) —by leave—I move:

Schedule 1, page 105, Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs portfolio, Outcome 1, reduce the vote for the Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs by $9.5 million being the amount for the construction of a purpose built permanent immigration reception and processing centre on Christmas Island.

Schedule 1, page 126, Transport and Regional Services portfolio, Outcome 2, reduce the vote for the Department of Transport and Regional Services by $11.6 million being the amount for the construction of a purpose built immigration reception and processing centre on Christmas Island.

Statement pursuant to the order of the Senate of 26 June 2000

These amendments are framed as requests because they are to a bill which appropriates moneys for the ordinary annual services of the government.

Statement by the Clerk of the Senate pursuant to the order of the Senate of 26 June 2000

As this is a bill appropriating moneys for the ordinary annual services of the government it is moved as a request . This is in accordance with the precedents of the Senate.

I will speak to these requests for amendments with regard to Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2002-2003 and Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2002-2003 together. They all relate to an immigration detention centre on Christmas Island.

Senator Ferguson —Which you know nothing about.

Senator BARTLETT —I take the interjection from Senator Ferguson. I actually know quite a lot about the immigration detention centre on Christmas Island. If he wishes to encourage me to speak longer, I am happy to do so, because I think this is a particularly disgraceful facility and a particularly disgraceful waste of public money. Whilst appropriation bill debates more broadly tend to be ones where we speak on whatever we want, they are, let us not forget, about extracting money from the taxpayer to spend on things. These requests and amendments go to a particularly bad thing we are going to spend money on, which is a detention centre on Christmas Island. I make the important point that these two separate requests for amendments deal with the appropriation of well over $130 million to build a detention centre on Christmas Island that is not necessary. We already have an empty detention centre in Darwin and we have another detention centre planned and committed to be built in Brisbane. The whole purpose of this detention centre is to detain people somewhere where they can have no legal rights.

Apart from the waste of money, it will cause immense environmental damage. This detention centre project has been exempted from the strong federal environmental protection laws on the ground of so-called national interest.

Senator Faulkner —They are now strong laws, are they?

Senator BARTLETT —They are strong laws. We would always like to make them stronger, but they are strong laws. One of the weaknesses is that the federal environment minister can exempt a proposal on the grounds of national interest. That is a weakness; I acknowledge that. The disgraceful misuse of that part of the act is a clear-cut example of why we need to amend the act to remove the ability of the minister to exempt any proposal on the ground of national interest. Clearly this is a case where it has been misused. The minister did not consider national interest on the grounds of all the environmental aspects. He said national interest is that the government needs to be able to lock away refugees somewhere where no-one can get to them and they have no legal rights. I do not believe that comes even remotely close to national interest. Despite the hour of the morning that has been forced on us by agreements between the government and the opposition—

Senator Ian Macdonald —And by long boring speeches.

The CHAIRMAN —Senator Macdonald, would you please cease interjecting. It is disorderly, and you are out of your seat, which makes it even more so.

Senator BARTLETT —And not even interesting, which is totally unforgivable. I could cope with an interjection if it was interesting.

Senator Faulkner —Your leader and whip were present when these negotiations were being conducted.

Senator BARTLETT —The main thing is that we are agreeing to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to build a detention centre that we do not need so that we can lock up refugees somewhere where they do not have any legal rights, in a manner that will destroy the environment of a place that has natural heritage values. That is what the parliament is agreeing to, among many other things. I am sure we all agree to the totality, but the point needs to be made that that is what is being done.

The reason I am saying this is to point out to the public of Australia that the government is willing to waste hundreds of millions of Australian dollars to put people in a situation where they have reduced legal rights and to destroy the environment purely so it can win elections. I am sure you are happy about the fact that you won an election on dividing the nation, wasting hundreds of millions of dollars, removing people's legal rights, putting people in a situation where they may die. You are happy to be in government because of that—I am not happy that you are in government because of that. This appropriation bill is yet another representation of the fact that this government is willing to waste hundreds of millions of dollars of Australian taxpayers' money building a facility we do not need in order to imprison people without rights in a way that destroys the environment. It is straightforward, simple and cut and dried. It totally sucks. We should oppose it, and that is what these requests for amendment are about.

The CHAIRMAN —The question is that the request for amendments be agreed to.

Question negatived.

Bill agreed to.

APPROPRIATION BILL (No. 2) 2002-2003

Bill—by leave—taken as a whole.