August 10, 2006
The Migration Amendment (Designated Unauthorised Arrivals) Bill, under which all asylum seekers arriving in Australia by boat would be sent to island detention centres like Nauru for processing, is being debated in Parliament this week. The Federal Government's border protection legislation is widely seen as Australia turning away from protecting individual rights to give into Indonesia demands over the West Papuan refugees.
Bruce Petty
Though a Liberal/National Coalition-dominated Senate committee recommended in June that the bill not proceed, there has been a lot of pressure to toe the party line. The quote below is from a speech by dissenting Liberal MP Russell Broadbent, in parliament yesterday, on why he'll cross the house floor to vote with Judi Moylan, Petro Georgiou and Russell Broadbent against the government on the migration bill. Two dissenting MP's -- the Liberals Bruce Baird and the Nationals John Forrrest ---abstained from the vote rather than side with Labor.
In his speech to the House Russell Broadbent says:
The path I take today I did not choose. This path chose me. I cannot simply walk away from the agreement reached and legislated nearly 12 months ago. The founder of the Liberal Party, Sir Robert Menzies, built the party on a foundation of plural traditions of free thought and individual conscience. Free thought and individual conscience are not things to be used frivolously, nor taken lightly, but are freedoms that are embodied in the traditions of our party.
The decision I had taken to oppose this legislation, to follow my conscience and vote for the first time, and I hope the last time, against the Government of which I was elected as a member, is made because it is in the long-term national interest of this great south land to continue to be a compassionate protector of the rights of refugees, irrespective of the importance of the close relationship between Australia and one of our neighbours.
I believe there is a potential for this bill to cause serious harm to the progress we have made on this issue as a nation and to the vulnerable people it would affect. I will be voting against these amendments knowing that there are some in my party who do not agree with the "plural tradition" of the Liberal Party and its principles of free thought and individual conscience. Some warn that any dissent is a form of political death. I am no stranger to death. I have suffered defeat four times, but I have also been elected to this house three times. It is not the office of the federal member that is important; it is what you do in office. I take comfort in the words of Dr Martin Luther King: "The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." This bill is an issue of challenge and controversy.
If I am to die politically because of my stance on this bill, it is better to die on my feet than to live on my knees.
This is border protection in the form of the Pacific Solution. The bill passed 79-62 in the lower house after two days of emotional debate and now goes to the Senate, where the vote next week will be much tighter. It as expected that Victorian Liberal Judith Troeth will cross the floor.
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are freedoms that are embodied in the traditions of our party.
That fits Brett's notion of Deakinite liberalism being the dominant political strand in Australia.