Sarah Hanson-Young joins Insiders

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Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Broadcast: 20/02/2011

Reporter: Barrie Cassidy

South Australian Senator Sarah Hanson-Young joins Barrie Cassidy to discuss multiculturalism, asylum seekers, the Government's proposed flood levy and more.

BARRIE CASSIDY: Sarah Hanson-Young, good morning.

SARAH HANSON-YOUNG, SA GREENS SENATOR: Good morning. Thanks for having me.

BARRIE CASSIDY: So multiculturalism is back, the term is back. Do we need these sorts of definitions to explain to the country what we're on about?

SARAH HANSON-YOUNG: It's funny isn't it? Because I think when you talk to people on the street, particularly somebody of my generation, we've always believed that we are a multicultural community. We know what that means. It's respecting each other. It's the vibrancy of our communities.

What has failed here is the political discourse around it and leadership.

And of course you know it's been wonderful to see the Labor Party readopt the M word. What we now need to see is what that means in terms of supporting those communities and really making sure it's not just part of our education system, but that we just accept that multiculturalism is mainstream.

We're a multicultural community. We're a multicultural society. And that's what makes Australia great. And when you look back in history we always have been, we will continue to be and let's be proud of that.

BARRIE CASSIDY: So where did it go? Why was the Government reluctant to use the term for so long and certainly during the election campaign?

SARAH HANSON-YOUNG: Yeah look it's, I think it's really about a failure of political leadership, for the particularly the last decade.

And we saw the cultural wars and the history wars and people wanting to make mileage for their own political gain out of this.

I think the community and people who go about their everyday business, it was never a problem for them. It's political leadership that's been the problem.

BARRIE CASSIDY: Well let's talk about this nine-year-old orphan boy described by one lawyer this week as a ping-pong ball.

What did you make of the Government's handling of that?

SARAH HANSON-YOUNG: I think the Government's handling of Seena's case in particular, the nine-year-old boy you talk about, was a debacle to say the least.

You know this is a young boy who the day after the tragedy, when we learnt that he had become orphaned because he'd lost both of his parents, I came out clearly and said to the minister this boy, along with the other orphans, along with other survivors, should be brought to the mainland.

Because we know these people will be suffering above and beyond the normal trauma of asylum seekers who have fled persecution and torture, this awful incident compounding that stress and that traumatic experience that they've been through, bring them to the mainland so they're close to services.

And we knew that a number of these people had extended family here in New South Wales. So let's try and do the logical thing and take a commonsense approach.

That was rejected. We now see this boy caught up in what has really been a political game this week. I don't think anyone wants to see another week we saw, both from the Opposition of course and also from the Government. I don't think it was a particularly high point from any of them.

BARRIE CASSIDY: But then this case got a lot of attention. But there are what, something like 1,000 kids in detention?

SARAH HANSON-YOUNG: There's 1,065 kids in detention to date.

And of course when we saw Chris Bowen the Minister make announcements in October around the need to try and move children out of detention, there was just over 600.

So since October to now those numbers have risen. And while there's been a commitment to enact the power that the minister already has, has had since 2005, to make a discretion to allow children and their families to move out, it's definitely not happening as fast as it should be.

BARRIE CASSIDY: So what should be done?

SARAH HANSON-YOUNG: Well look I think we need to fast-track the process and get those kids and their families out of detention. That's an absolute must.

But we also need to fix things for the longer term. How come we've got to a stage where there's 1,000 kids in detention?

You know regardless of what people's political opinions on this issue are in terms of the overall strategy of dealing with asylum seekers and the various different visa applications and processes, most people that you would talk to on the street, most parliamentarians would argue that kids do not belong in detention.

And if we believe that well let's do something to fix it. And that means we actually have to amend the Migration Act.

BARRIE CASSIDY: And how would you go about doing that though? You've got in mind an inquiry, a six-month inquiry?

SARAH HANSON-YOUNG: What I really want to see the Government do is acknowledge that we need to fix this; not just in terms of the kids that are there now but that we don't want to have to go back to a situation where we have a backlog of 1,000 children held in immigration detention.

So a review commissioned by the Government to independently analyse the Migration Act and how it interacts with responsibilities of Government to minors and children, get some recommendations from the experts who know about this.

People have been talking about this for a long time and yet it's falling on the deaf ears of Government.

Let's get recommendations and then as parliamentarians sit around the table and work out how we can agree that kids don't belong in detention and what we're going to do to make sure that is the law.

BARRIE CASSIDY: Have you spoken to anybody in the Government about this? Is there any appetite for such an approach?

SARAH HANSON-YOUNG: Look I've mentioned it to the Minister and I've asked for further talks on this issue.

I think it's something that the Government seriously needs to consider. Does Chris Bowen really want to go back and have a week that we've just seen? You know the lowest point in the debate over this issue was last week.

And if Chris Bowen wants to fix this for the long term, if we want a commonsense approach and a humane approach, something that really does ensure that we respect the compassion and empathy that really underpins Australian values, then I think this is a wise decision to take.

BARRIE CASSIDY: If you talk to politicians though on both sides in the major parties, you talk to them privately and they say but this concern comes up wherever we go. People are really concerned about asylum seekers. And so they simply won't go into bat for them.

SARAH HANSON-YOUNG: Look it's really interesting that the politics that came out this week, I mean really grubby, yukky stuff that we saw, comments that were made about really underscoring and really going to the base level of what's existing in every society.

But politicians who play on that I think really lack the leadership that their position deserves. And what we saw was politicians play to that, rather than saying hang on a minute, the Australian community are a compassionate bunch. You know we have this innate believe in the fair go. That's what we were built on. That's why people want to come to our country.

I find it extraordinary that we have this debate about border protection. People who come to Australia as asylum seekers seeking protections don't want to break our borders. They want to be invoked by the protection of our borders. That's why they're coming here.

And it's a shift of course. It means putting the politics aside for a minute and putting the people at the centre. And that hasn't happened for a long time in the Australian political sphere on this issue and it's time it did.

BARRIE CASSIDY: OK, I want to ask you about the flood levy now. And you managed to reverse $100 million that the Government had given up on the Solar Flagship program.

That's a shortfall now that the Government will have to find. Have they given new any indication how they'll do that?

SARAH HANSON-YOUNG: Well look in our negotiations and discussions with the Government it was clearly said that this couldn't just come from other service cuts. We don't want to see that happen. The Government is going to have to find other ways to do it.

We've got some ideas of how that could be done. An extra $100 million coming from carbon and capture storage program, that's a place that it could come from.

The Government, my understanding is that they will look at this in the context of designing the budget. And the Government themselves have said there's other places there. We just don't want to see that come from essential services.

BARRIE CASSIDY: But did they say to you that they won't come from essential services?

SARAH HANSON-YOUNG: That is what we've put to the Government...

BARRIE CASSIDY: You've put that to them so what if, OK you win this concession but then they do something that's just as objectionable to you in the budget?

SARAH HANSON-YOUNG: Well of course with the budget we will continue to scrutinise and look at the budget and look at places where, if indeed it needs to be improved, just like we do every year.

We're not interested in knocking and blocking like Tony Abbott you know, Dr No on the run.

This is more about saying OK, are there going to be areas in the budget that the Government maybe doesn't get it right or maybe they do and we need to support that and increase that and improve it.

It's about doing it responsibly though. And until we've got the budget it's hard to be looking at the crystal ball.

BARRIE CASSIDY: But how do you do that? Because you say you won't block the budget. So how will you influence individual measures?

SARAH HANSON-YOUNG: Well just as we do every year, the various different parts of legislation that come through, the discussions and negotiations that we have about improving things.

We've done that for the 12, three years the Greens have been in the Federal Parliament and we'll continue to do that.

BARRIE CASSIDY: OK, BHP Billiton announced a profit this week of $10 billion. At the same time Treasury revealed that the Government had given up about $60 billion in its compromise with the mining companies on the super profits tax.

Do you feel you can now go in even harder on the companies when you negotiate the carbon price with the Government?

SARAH HANSON-YOUNG: Well look I think those figures that were released this week really do put in context the current deal that's been struck between the Government and the three biggest mining companies.

I mean $6 billion the Australian public should be getting extra into, whether that's to be put into a sovereign fund as many economists are now arguing. That's what the Greens said from the beginning.

I do think we need to have a rethink about the way the mining tax has been structured. And how that interacts with the carbon price, well that's of course still a discussion that's happening within the multi-party committee.

BARRIE CASSIDY: So you see a link between the two. You think your hand has been strengthened as a result of the figures that have been disclosed this week?

SARAH HANSON-YOUNG: Well of course the need to put a price on carbon and we want to see that happen as soon as possible, the interim carbon price. And we've put forward a solution to the committee and the committee is going to continue having that discussion.

But of course this issue of the mining tax does need to be reconsidered now in the context of, remember not even 12 months ago these big companies were crying poor and now we see huge profit predictions being reported. I think it's time for us to have a rethink.

BARRIE CASSIDY: But you are pretty much in agreement with the Government about how this should be applied, are you not? It seems as if the difficulties will be in terms of how you compensate industry.

SARAH HANSON-YOUNG: Well look that's obviously going to be a key difference of discussion in terms of the carbon price. And that's something for the committee to keep discussing.

I'm confident that we will get a result. I'm confident that we can work out a way to put an interim price on carbon and start to really make a difference to reducing carbon emissions. That's what this is all about. And I'm confident that the committee will deliver.

BARRIE CASSIDY: Just finally do you ever see the day when the Greens might think again about nuclear power given that it is one of the cleanest energy sources available?

SARAH HANSON-YOUNG: Look I think the Greens' position on nuclear power is quite clear. And I think the Australian people are quite clear that they don't want it here in Australia.

I realise it's going to be put squarely on the agenda of the Labor Party conference and that's an issue for them to talk about.

But when there are alternatives that are right there, right now, ready to go, they just need the confidence and backing from Government, why not be putting our energies into those things?

BARRIE CASSIDY: But why not put this on the table as well, given that it is a clean source of power?

SARAH HANSON-YOUNG: Well of course what do you do with waste Barrie? And that's always the big question.

Who, all those proponents of nuclear power can never answer the questions of what you do with the waste and of course how you resist the temptation of that further expansion of uranium going into weapons.

And they're not things that can simply be brushed aside in this debate. They're very fundamental and core if Australia was to expand those types of operations.

BARRIE CASSIDY: So nuclear power never ever?

SARAH HANSON-YOUNG: Well look it's, there's, I haven't seen anyone come up with a solution of how we deal with the waste. And until we do I don't think it's something we should be spending too much time on because there are alternatives that are out there.

The solar and thermal industries are right there ready to go. They just need the backing from Government and some real certainty.

You know what we've seen over the last three or four years from this Government is, while they talk about it a lot there's that boom, bust, boom bust kind of inference to the industry. And it's time we actually gave them the real backing they deserve.

BARRIE CASSIDY: Thanks for your time this morning.


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