Senator MARSHALL (3:19 PM) —Quite frankly, it sickens me to see people try to take and make political advantage from the human suffering and the human misery of others. Quite frankly, it is appalling. We have heard Senator Back—

Senator Back —No political advantage, Senator Marshall.

Senator MARSHALL —you can make that interjection—refer to people as ‘queue jumpers’. This is a simplistic argument which you run to try to demonise people seeking asylum in this country. Where was the queue in Sri Lanka? As the Sri Lankan army was closing in on hundreds of thousands of the population who were in the bombardment range and who were actually being driven into the sea, where was the queue for those people, Senator Back? There is no such thing as a queue for people who are escaping human rights abuses, torture, human misery and war. It is just simplistic and typical of the dog whistling attitude of the coalition, who will do and say anything to try and make some political advantage about any issue that they can. This is the great tragedy across the world. The fact is that people need to flee their homelands because of the human misery that they are suffering, because of torture, because of human rights abuses and because of starvation. They need to flee from it and seek political asylum in other countries around the world. People on that side have no sympathy, no compassion; they seek to make political advantage from their misery. Quite frankly, as I said, it sickens me and it disgusts me.

There is of course enormous difficulty for all governments across the board when there are periods of instability, as there have been—and there will be more of it. We see what is happening in Northern Africa. We see it happening in Libya and in other countries. I can tell you: there is no queue in Libya. We will see people displaced for what is looking like a long civil war in that country. We will see people displaced and we will see refugees. Some of them will be fleeing harassment. The very thing that the UN is doing now is trying to protect civilians. They will not be able to protect them all and people will flee that country. A lot of them will go to Europe, some of them will try to make their way to America and some of them will try to make their way here. And you will say, ‘Why didn’t they get in the queue? Why didn’t you get in that queue in Libya or wherever that queue might be?’ They will be fleeing torture; they will be fleeing war. They have a legal international right to seek asylum in third countries. We have a legal obligation to take them and process their claims for asylum. We have a right to do that, and we have a legal obligation to do it.

Whenever there is widespread conflict in places across the globe, there are going to be more people seeking refugee status, not just in Australia but across the world. It is not a problem that is unique to us. It is appalling that those on the other side try to politicise this. It is a balance. When most of these people flee torture and war, they do so genuinely without papers or luggage or anything else.

Senator Cash —How do they get on aeroplanes?

Senator Abetz —How do they get a plane to Indonesia? Where do they get the $10,000 to fly to Indonesia?

Senator MARSHALL —There we have again the stereotyping of all these people. ‘They get on aeroplanes to go somewhere and then they get on a boat to come here, and none of them are genuine refugees.’ That is how you try to paint all these people.

Senator Abetz —It is the majority.

Senator MARSHALL —It is not the majority at all. We know that the vast majority of them end up having their claims for asylum approved. The vast majority of them are genuine asylum seekers. That is something that you do not like, because you want to paint all these people as opportunists and queue jumpers. That is what you have done and what you want to do, and it makes me sick. It is political opportunism that plays on people’s most basic fears. You ought to know better. You ought to be leaders in the community.

The Australian government needs to assess every claim for asylum that is made. We need to check where these people have come from and whether their claims are genuine. We need to establish that they are who they say they are. That is very difficult to do sometimes when people have fled countries, especially when the regimes that they have fled from are uncooperative. It is an incredibly difficult process. There is always a balance between the government’s responsibility to process people properly and to ensure that their claims are accurate and that they are who they say they are and the government’s responsibility to put people through the system as quickly as we can possibly can. That is a challenge not only for this government but for every government. I strongly urge the opposition to get some humanity back. (Time expired)