The Chaser Report - Labor's Deportation Laws Are Liberal Cosplay

Episode Date: March 27, 2024

You know your laws on refugees are bad when even PAULINE HANSON thinks they're a step too far. Dom brings you up to speed on the weird/evil new laws that the government tried passing, but the Senate blocked. Meanwhile Charles' brain melts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gatigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to the Chaser Report with Dom and Charles. Charles, foreigners are scary. Yes, they're terrifying. And the people who are most scared of foreigners at the moment, Charles, it's not, you know, little old ladies living in fear. It's not the kids worried that the High Court let all these criminals walk on the streets. It's people who seem to be scaredest of foreigners at the moment, Charles, specifically asylum seekers, are the Labor Party.

They're very scared that if they don't fix this issue, they're going to lose the next election. Peter Dutton's going to make political hay out of it in a sort of Tony Abbott-style scare campaign. And so they are, in response to the scare campaign, apparently genuinely scared, Charles. Wow. Okay. Gosh. And should we be scared as well? Is that how this works?

I think... Look, I'll talk you through what they're trying to do. Yeah. Because it's unclear to me, we should, okay, we should definitely be scared. I'm just not clear whether we should be scared of Labor or scared of the other parties that have just blocked Labor in the Senate. Because Labor took their whole new plan to the Senate earlier today, I think, presumably thinking that it would be a lay-down measure

because no one ever votes against being tough on asylum seekers in Australian politics. That never happens. And everyone voted against it. Everyone. Everyone. What? So, like, even, what, Pauline Hanson voted against? The coalition voted against it, the Greens, the other crossbenchers, presumably

Pocock, including Pauline Hanson and Ralph Babbitt from the UAP. So what you're saying, is Pauline Hanson is soft on refugees? Apparently, she wants a Senate inquiry. Now, to be fair to Pauline, the Senate inquiry might be on whether or not it can be toughened up. I'm not sure. It's not clear. But they're saying, look, you're trying to rush it through too quickly.

but we you know Labour's trying to get this done before Easter and Claire O'Neill in response to this said pitted up and then the Liberals could be voting to protect Australians today they could be taking a big step in keeping the community safe but instead they've chosen not to okay so I feel like we should take an ad break

and we should just take a step back because I have no idea what's going on here Charles okay we'll take an ad break but just just look behind you in case there's either an asylum seeker a criminal has been led out by the high court or possibly a member of the Albanese government cowering behind your sofa

in case they'll lose the election on this issue. Okay, so can we just, before you get into it, Dom, and I know you're going to go through and you're going to explain it in excruciating detail. And you're going to explain the laws that Labor has failed to pass basically, as far as I can tell, making refugees illegal, right, Lou? Some of them. It does, some of the provisions in the law are quite extraordinary, actually.

We'll get to that. But why don't we just set the scene? But just step back, which is my understanding of a good scare campaign, which is what all refugee campaigns boil down to, right? Like, yes, it's wrong to persecute people fleeing for their lives. You know, strictly speaking, if Australia were back in, you know, 2000 years ago, in some ways, Jesus wouldn't have been allowed into this country, would he? Yeah, and to be fair, the boat people who turn up in 1780,

turned out to be quite a problem. Yeah, yeah. And, yeah, I mean, there's a long history of terrible people arriving on boats in Australia, yeah. I mean, if First Nations could have decided who came into the country in the circumstances in which they'd come, they would have said no. There wouldn't have been lots and lots of viruses and other massacres, and they would have had a much better time of things. Problem solved. But what I would say is the first rule of running an effective scare campaign is to have a fucking story that anyone can follow about why you're running.

a scare campaign, right? Okay. What I don't quite understand is, yeah, they had all that sort of problem with the high cord, but no one has told, like, under Howard, it was clear, wasn't it?

It was like, there was a boat. There was the Tampa. Yeah, the Tampa. They look a bit different. 9-11s just happened. And they all look a bit terrible that they threw children overboard,

except that they did it. Yeah, it's exactly. They had a whole, it was all fiction, but it was a complete narrative with photos and like props and brown people cropping cropping Photoshop jobs And in the ocean

Yeah all the theatre that you need to run a scare campaign Labour have just not done any of the groundwork And just gone straight to the let's pass the draconian law But not tell the story about this scare campaign They've missed out the most important part So you're saying they've been trying Make us scare They've been trying to pull a Howard

but they've fucked it up. Like, is there anything sadder than trying to mount a scare campaign and failing to scare anybody? Yes, exactly. Okay, but Charles, let's just remember what's happened here because they've sort of been reversed wedged a bit here. What happened was all these people were locked up indefinitely, many of whom had been convicted of things overseas

and, you know, genuinely, as we discussed before on the podcast, some pretty heinous crimes, right? Yeah, there was an assassin. One of them was an assassin. Yes, there was sexual assaults. A convicted of assesson. Various other things. So, you know, people,

who I think even the most passionate refugee advocates would possibly think twice before simply letting it to the community. But then the High Court rule that indefinite detention of high-risk offenders is not constitutional, right? They said that you've got to let, you can't keep people locked up forever, which I guess is a fairly foundational principle in our legal system, maybe think about it. Yeah, I mean, some would say it's a bit of a, you know, finicky, lawyery approach to Yeah, it's sort of habeas corpus and all that.

You can't just keep people locked up forever. It's a, it's one of those... It's been killed joys. It's what lawyers do. It's one of those principles that have been around a thousand years. And so therefore, it's getting a bit old. It's a bit old. And it certainly doesn't apply in Guantanamo Bay, right?

So we've kind of... It's out of date, really. So they've got to fashion. At a fashion. And then, unsurprisingly, Peter Dutton, despite the fact that this all happened when the coalition was in office, the whole court case started back then.

The coalition's been making absolute hay and saying that the Albanesey, the government's got to act to keep Australian safe from these terrible people, allegedly. They've got to do something. And so they put in the monitoring regime, they tried to bring in an enclilts and all this kind of stuff. And then the coalition for weeks, do something. You know, in the Dunkley by-election, you might remember Susan Lee we talked about on the podcast, was essentially trying to say, you know, what's Labor's policy on criminals next door to you?

All that sort of stuff went down. So then the government. But didn't they lose? They lost that. Yes, it didn't actually prove very effective. hilariously enough, because people weren't actually scared. But then it's as though the government feels that that's a really compelling attack line, even though it failed in Dunkley.

And so they're trying to do whatever they can to make sure that these people can actually be deported, can actually be sent home. And that's why they've brought in these amendments, which are incredibly draconian. So let's go through them. So this is pretty amazing stuff, particularly from a Labor government. But even it goes further than kind of Philip Ruddick reforms in some ways. So this is the migration amendment. It's removal and other measures bill, right?

So it applies to people who, they say, are not refugees. They've exhausted all legal avenues to stay in Australia, but they refuse to leave. So the first thing that it does is that it empowers the immigration minister to direct a person that the government wants to deport to cooperate with all the efforts to remove them. So if the government wants to deport you, it's now, well, if it goes ahead, it would be law that you have to comply. And if you don't comply, they can lock you up up to five years. So you can't object

Yes Right Which is I've never Have a law like this before You can't launch an appeal Because that would be against the law Yeah And the actual act of appealing

Would be Five years in jail So it's like a bouncer As I understand At a party He goes come on mate You've had too much And if you try and protest

They punch you It's kind of like that Is essentially the principle That's being brought in It's sort of a little bit Like my parenting style Yeah It is actually

Yeah Where you go You know Do you want to go to bed now, or do you want to go to bed in five minutes, right? And either way, you then go, well, you're going to go to jail for five years. I've heard you say that. It's quite harsh. And on that note, Charles, I think you should let your youngest out. I think it's probably been about five years since you locked him up. Yeah.

Oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah. I don't know whether you fed him during that period. I think I might have just taken a moment to go. Yeah. I haven't fed him. Okay, so I'm getting this summary from The Herald, by the way. I'm just basically reading out how they've summarized this. This is another, I've never heard this in law before, Charles. Holding a genuine fear of harm or persecution if you'll return to your country of origin is not a reasonable excuse for refusing to cooperate. So at the same time as the government is saying that Assange has got to be let out because if he goes to the US, we get in terrible trouble.

They're also saying it's not allowed to be scared of harm or persecution. You can't even have a genuine fear and refuse to cooperate. You've just got to go. You've got to go to your death, basically, if that's what you think's going to happen. Yeah, and in actual fact, so what it's saying is, even if you have a genuine fear, just toughen up, love. Puffing up. Yeah, right.

It's helping, actually. It's like the government's in an episode of fear factor. They're helping these people confront their fears or else. Or else, yeah. And what's the penalty for having a genuine fear? Probably death when you get off the plane, isn't it? Yeah, I think that's the usual one. And I think, look, not wanting to be glib about this,

I think this is going to also affect a lot of Americans because, you know, like if I was an American staying here, I'd have a genuine fear of returning home even if I was just on holiday or something. That's going to capture a lot more people than they realize. New Zealand? What about all the Kiwis? So you're going to go home to be teased?

Yeah. Far to be Joyce when he goes back to New Zealand, he's going to be mocked. Yep, that's a genuine fear. Here is the bit that's the most extraordinary part in terms of being draconian. And again, I've never heard of any ideas like, before. Donald Trump might well pick up on this regime, Charles.

The government can also ban the Herald says people from applying for a visa to Australia if they're a citizen of a country that does not accept the voluntary return of its citizens. This includes countries such as Iran, Iraq and South Sudan. So those people, let's say if they get sent back, you can't apply to come to Australia if your country doesn't accept the voluntary return of people and presumably people being dumped like this as well. So we're not going to get anyone in from Iran, Iraq or South Sudan. So wait a minute.

So that means that no one can ever come from those countries to Australia. Presumably, unless they change their laws to allow the voluntary return of their citizens. But isn't the whole point about, you know, if you're fleeing for your life, that you go to another country, a safe haven, and then you apply, you go as a tourist or whatever you go, you find any excuse to leave the country. To not be killed? Yeah, because you're not going to sort of walk out the door going, oh, I'm fleeing for my life. You're going, oh, I'm just going on a, you know, family holiday or I'm just going on a research trip or whatever.

And then you apply. So essentially, it's perfect, isn't it? Because it sort of captures the countries that are most likely to be persecuting their people and have a whole lot of asylum seekers and saying, well, you get to keep all the people you're persecuting. It's kind of genius in a way, isn't it? It is pretty, pretty good. I mean, it's sort of evil genius. Like, don't get me wrong. But it's, I mean, who came up with this legislation?

Like, who drafted these laws? Who came up with this? I mean, the thing is. Or is this elbow? This is all elbow. This is a good elbow. I don't know who it is. He's gone.

There's two elbows. There's public housing elbow that he, you know, his public face. And then there's evil elbow. This is dark elbow. Dark elbow. Dark elbow. Dark Biden. Dark, Brandon.

Yeah, that's what's happened. He's shifted. So we're in a situation now where the opposition is saying the government doesn't want scrutiny over this bill. They're not looking at what it does. And here's the killer. He's the killer line from the coalition from James Patterson, the Home Affairs spokesperson for the opposition. He says, what is the link between this bill and that ASF 17 case that they want to deport? They're saying, does this even kick out the people we want to kick out?

So wait a minute, the law doesn't even. do the thing that the government is claiming it does. Well, that's what the coalition is saying is, can we just check? If we're going to pass all these powers, let's just check that we can pick on the right people. But what, no, but it's sort of, it's all topsy-turvy. Well, the thing is

that Labor are not very good at this stuff, right? And so what's happened is Claire O'Neill, the Home Affairs, she's made Stephanie Foster, the Home Affairs Secretary cry, apparently after she, you might have heard, the Secretary released details of the ex-immigration detainings.

criminal records exactly the thing the government wanted to suppress is exactly what these people are being convicted of which you know i can see the argument for making that information public and so and so the point is they're wanting to be tough on crime but they don't really know how to do it properly they're being tough on public servants they want to be they want to be seen as so they're cosplaying they're cosplaying the liberal party and badly yes and and and because they've got absolutely no moral centre They've gone completely off the deep end and are doing things that even people with no shred of human decency go, like Pauline Hanson and UAP and all those sorts of people.

Even they're going, well, hang on. Hang on, guys, let's just check. Let's just check. Let's just check ourselves when we're beating up refugees. You know that moment in parenting where you get your buttons pushed too far and you absolutely snap and just go way too far and then you immediately have to go, hang on, no, I didn't, I didn't mean that. didn't mean I would throw your iPad in the bin. I'm not actually going to.

You had to walk it back. I wonder if Flab is going to do that. The Chaser Report, news you know you can't trust. There's one more detail I haven't told you, Charles. And this is, again, I'm just reading this out. I'm not an immigration lawyer. I don't understand the fine detail. But just give me your honest reaction to this, Charles.

The legislation, this is the final bullet point. It also allows the government to reconsider whether Australia owes protection to someone who's fled a perilous country if the government, is trying to deport them. So if the government wants to deport a person who's fled a perilous country, it allows them to reconsider whether they can deport them.

It doesn't sound great for the person who's fled the perilous country. But I don't understand what extra power can't the government already reconsider whether to deport them or not? It sounds like they can reconsider their reconsideration, Jails. I don't really know what's going on. It just sounds as though...

Oh, I see. You can have multiple trials. so you can be stuck in this infinite loop of the judge says, no, no, no, you can't deport that person. And the government's then allowed to go, oh, well, we're now reconsidering it. We've reconsidering it. Whoops. Yeah.

And then they can't appeal because then that breaks the second rule, which is they're objecting to their own deportation. Baha, that's it. It's a proper, it's very coherent. It is the most vicious of circles, isn't it? Yes. So what happens if the next draft of the law says that, We're not allowed to make fun of the government's attempts to deport all these people.

And if we get five years in jail. I think that's what's missing. I think that's what's missing from this legislation, Dom. Well, actually, that's true. If it had in the bill that any parliamentarians who dared to ask questions would be considered in breach of the immigration minister's efforts to deport the person. That would do the trick. They could have locked up all the senators who voted against it. That is what they should do.

Yep. That is totally what they should do. That's the way through the deadlock. Yep. So, well, I'm glad we've solved Australia's immigration and indeed democracy problem. I've often felt that the problem with the Labor Party is not that it doesn't know how to tell a story. It's not that it doesn't know how to run a scare campaign. They just need to learn how to be more convincing at being harsh.

They just got to practice, like all of us as parents, sometimes you've really got to punish asylum seekers who are in desperate need and think they're going to be killed if they go back home. Apparently, that's what we have to do to win an election now. But wait a minute, did all the left-wing Labor MPs vote for this bill? They have to, don't they? It's core discipline. I know, but you can't cross the floor. But they had that same excuse in Nuremberg. It doesn't actually apply when something is evil.

But, Charles, Penny Wong had to sit there. Penny Wong had to sit there and say why she wasn't voting for gay marriage time and time again on Q&A. She had to vote against it. I mean, this is what it takes to be part of the Labor Party, Charles. It's a shit sandwich I've got to eat every bite off I've worked it out I know why they're doing it

I've worked it out Albo doesn't want the job anymore He doesn't want to be Prime Minister He wants to be voted out of the next election What does he do He comes up with a piece of legislation That is so against Everything that Labor stands for

That all the Labor voters will abandon Labor He comes up with something That's so objectionable Even the Liberal Party And the One Nation Party will vote against Labor. Literally no one's going to vote for Labor at the next election.

If you're forgetting one thing, Charles. He gets to go and count his, you know, parliamentary... Well, he's getting married. He can have a long... He's getting married. Yeah. Better not go to a place that doesn't have good deportation laws. That's true, actually. You'll never get back.

reciprocal depot, yeah. But Charles, the thing is, this hasn't been put to the opinion polls yet. Nobody ever lost an opinion poll in this country by being too harsh. On refugees. Albanese, he might have just won the next election. Dutton's toast, I'm thinking.

That's toast. You can't come back from this. No, you can't come back from that. Geez. Oh, happy Easter, Charles. We've tied ourselves up in knots late at night trying to make sense of this policy. It is a very strange. I've never heard of a law that goes this far, really, in all the years of politicising this debate.

This goes further than ever before. Yeah. It feels like we've got to roll out the race card again. You mean Craig's outfit? Yeah, I want the Craig's outfit. It's sad, though, Charles, because I've, I really wanted to go to South Sudan, and now I just don't know if I've got to get a visa. You know what's going to happen, though?

Other countries are going to not allow people to come from Australia because our laws are so draconian. There will be classed in the same level as Iran and South Sudan. We'll be an international pariah at last. Yeah. Our gear is from Road. We're part of the iconic class network. See ya.