Senator NETTLE (4:40 PM) —Pursuant to contingent notice of motion, I move:

The Greens believe that the Senate has no choice today but to censure Senator Vanstone, the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs, as the Australian public demand that some responsibility be taken for the series of scandals that have surfaced from the Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs and the government’s and the minister’s disgraceful handling of these scandals. The Australian public have been truly shocked by the revelations about our detention and deportation regime. They are horrified that an Australian government could treat any human being like Cornelia Rau or Vivian Alvarez, let alone that it would treat fellow Australians in this way.

The inhumanity and the incompetence that these scandals reveal must be dealt with in a way that gives the Australian public confidence that they know the truth about what happened and that they can have confidence that these scandals will not be repeated. The minister has failed to meet this public need. The minister tries instead to hide her responsibilities behind the private closed-door Palmer inquiry. She has repeatedly said that what the public are interested in and what is in the public interest are two different things. The minister is wrong. The public have a right to know whether the department of immigration is operating within the law and by acceptable standards and whether it is respecting human rights and dignity.

On 9 February the Senate passed a motion calling for a full, open and transparent judicial inquiry to investigate the Cornelia Rau scandal. The minister failed to heed this call, instead establishing the private Palmer inquiry. Since then, scandal after scandal has been revealed, and these snowballing events indicate systemic and institutional problems and failures with the government’s policy and the minister’s department. The Palmer inquiry does not have the powers and the resources to be able to conduct an adequate investigation. A royal commission is a necessity, and everyone but the government is calling for a royal commission. Malcolm Fraser recently said that the minister’s head would have rolled in his day. He said that the immigration minister would have had to resign. However, this government is notorious for failing to be held accountable. Its leader has made an art form of denying responsibility for his government’s actions and even his own words.

This censure motion should put the minister and the government on notice that the Australian public is quickly losing its patience. Hiding behind the Palmer inquiry rather than providing answers to the public is cowardly and results in a further loss of credibility. It is not acceptable for the minister to palm off her ministerial responsibilities to an inquiry that is closed to the public. The minister’s answers to questions during a recent Lateline interview make you wonder whether she is either unaware of what is going on in her department or avoiding giving answers to the public in order to avoid taking responsibility.

The more that Australians find out about what is going on inside our detention centres and how asylum seekers are being treated, the more they are appalled. They are not only appalled at the inhumanity and cruelty of mandatory detention but also appalled at their interactions with the department and the obstinate and unresponsive attitude that they find within the department of immigration. My office consistently receives more correspondence from Australians concerned about the practices of the department of immigration than any other issue. The more they learn about the operations of the department and the minister, the more enraged they become. Those who know the system well go further than to just be appalled; they consider the behaviour of this government as criminal. In February last year Julian Burnside QC said:

Julian Burnside has been proven correct. The government is today continuing to ignore accusations that have been made against the government and the clear prima facie case of the scandals in which the Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs has been engaged. But today the Senate has an opportunity to censure the minister responsible, and I urge my fellow senators to take this course of action.