Boochani, Mr B.

The Hon. C. BONAROS (16:15): I move:

That this council—

1. Acknowledges that author, journalist and filmmaker Behrouz Boochani will be appearing at the WORD Christchurch literary event on 29 November 2019;

2. Notes that Behrouz Boochani is also a Kurdish refugee who fled persecution in Iran, sought asylum in Australia and spent 2,269 days held by Australia's offshore processing regime;

3. Pays tribute to all those involved, including Amnesty International and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, in securing a visa to New Zealand to attend the Christchurch literary event;

4. Denounces Minister for Home Affairs, Peter Dutton's insistence that Behrouz Boochani will never step foot in Australia, even if he is granted asylum in New Zealand; and

5. Supports Behrouz Boochani's commitment to never return to Papua New Guinea.

This motion is a motion about the politics of hope. In late 2018, Picador Australia published the book entitled No Friend but the Mountains, written by Kurdish refugee and former Manus Island detainee, Behrouz Boochani. Remarkably, the book was written on a mobile phone using WhatsApp and smuggled out of Manus Island sentence by sentence as thousands of PDF files. It was then painstakingly translated from Persian into English by Dr Omid Tofighian at the University of Sydney.

It is a profound piece of writing, an act of defiance and resistance by a man interred on Manus Island by Australia's cruel and deliberate offshore processing regime. The book, chronicling Mr Boochani's boat journey from Indonesia to Christmas Island in 2013 and his subsequent detainment on Manus Island, has been celebrated the world over, as it should be. It has resulted in him winning Australia's richest literary award, the $100,000 Victorian Prize for Literature, as well as claiming $25,000 first place in the category of non-fiction.

In addition, Mr Boochani has won the Victorian Premier's prize for non-fiction, the prize for press freedom and the 2017 Amnesty Media Award, and his work has been published and featured around the world in The Guardian and other international newspapers. At the time of winning the Victorian Prize for Literature, Mr Boochani described his win as:

It is a victory not only for us but for literature and art, and above all it is a victory for humanity, a victory for human beings and human dignity, a victory against a system that has never recognised us as human beings. It is a victory against a system that has reduced us to numbers. This is a beautiful moment.

Mr Boochani was not allowed to attend the award ceremony for the Victorian Prize for Literature in Australia because of his continued offshore detention since 2013, put there by the Australian government.

However, over the past few months an incredible international effort helped coordinate Mr Boochani's flight to freedom. It was nothing short of a miracle, and I pay homage to Amnesty International, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and all those involved for achieving this amazing feat. It was a long and arduous process to get Behrouz out of offshore detention. Nothing was certain, not even when he got to the airport.

Mr Boochani travelled on a UNHCR passport and his trip involved a transit stop in Manila on the way to New Zealand, where he is due to appear at a literary festival in Christchurch. He was asked a multitude of questions in Port Moresby. Immigration officers made numerous phone calls, treating him suspiciously, despite having all his paperwork in order. I do not think any of us can imagine how much of a nerve-wracking experience this would have been for all involved, but especially of course for Mr Boochani. He could have been stopped in transit and upon his arrival in New Zealand he might have run into issues, despite being granted a visa by the New Zealand government.

Normally, Mr Boochani would have transited through Australia, but clearly that was not an option for him and his team. They had to find a government that would allow him to make the onward journey and, in the end, they found a way to New Zealand via the Philippines. Mr Boochani stayed at Manila's Ninoy Aquino International Airport for 19 hours before boarding the flight to Auckland and then took another flight from Auckland to Christchurch, his ordeal finally over.

He tasted freedom for the first time, having survived six years in offshore detention. In total, he spent 2,269 days held by Australia's offshore processing regime. I repeat: 2,269 days. He has a one-month visa to stay in New Zealand and is hopeful that he can resettle in the US, which has accepted him as part of Australia's refugee swap, in a deal struck between former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and former US president Barack Obama.

I, like many other Australians, was deeply moved by images of a smiling Behrouz Boochani standing in the sunshine in Christchurch Botanic Gardens. He was welcomed by the City of Christchurch with a civic reception and a traditional Maori welcome, a formal welcome. His presence and freedom in New Zealand poignantly underscores the country's political divide with Australia over our immigration policies. Mr Boochani was formally greeted from the plane by the Mayor of Christchurch and the city's Maori leaders who told him he was welcomed by the mountains, the rivers and the people of the city. New Zealand Greens MP Golriz Ghaharaman, herself a former Kurdish refugee from Iran, was also on hand to greet Mr Boochani. She said that New Zealand was a nation that stood against 'hate and division'.

The happy, hopeful and incredibly moving images of Mr Boochani's arrival in New Zealand were a stark contrast to his time in offshore detention. Weighed down by bouts of depression and dispirited by incarceration, he was gaoled for eight days for reporting on a hunger strike in the centre and twice tortured for several days in the notorious Chauka solitary confinement block in the now demolished Manus detention centre. He was put in solitary confinement for reporting the torture of detainees to the world outside, for lifting the veil of secrecy that many in the government sought to hide. In Australia, respective governments treated him like a criminal, despite having committed no criminal offence. He and the many others were political collateral in a race to the bottom by the major parties for their cruel and inhumane offshore processing and detention regime.

As an author, filmmaker and journalist, Mr Boochani saw it as his duty to report on what was happening in the detention centre in which he was interned. The uncertainty and inhumanity of indefinite detention certainly took its toll. It is etched on his face and in his eyes. Over the six years he was held on Manus Island and in Port Moresby, he witnessed friends shot, stabbed and murdered by guards on Manus Island. He saw others die through medical neglect and he watched others descend into mental anguish and suicide.

Mr Boochani has done more than any other person to document Australia's offshore detention regime, giving a unique and heartbreaking account from the inside. His future, though uncertain, is now filled with hope. Imagine if we did not have Mr Boochani's eyewitness accounts of the inhumanity occurring in offshore detention. We would still be absolutely in the dark about the worst abuses that have been condemned the world over.

But now he says that finally he feels free. The future might still be uncertain for him, except for one thing: he is never going back to PNG, the place of his incarceration at the hands of the Australian government. About three-quarters of the refugees and asylum seekers sent to PNG by Australia from 2012 onwards have left, either to Australia, the US or other countries, according to Mr Boochani.

Seven have died, and Mr Boochani says he remains distraught that some are still trapped in Papua New Guinea—in particular, 46 men who are being held in Bomana Prison in Port Moresby. While we are happy for Behrouz Boochani, our thoughts must not stray from those whose future remains in limbo. At the time of winning the Victorian prize for literature, Mr Boochani said:

A victory against a system that has never recognised us as human beings. It is a victory against a system that has reduced us to numbers. This is a beautiful moment.

I recall another time and another place where the government reduced people to numbers; lest we forget. I am not alone in this thinking, and like many Australians, I say sorry. I hope this abuse of humans stops and we become a saner, more compassionate nation with a leadership that reflects the basic human qualities of care, compassion and empathy.

I join with my federal Centre Alliance colleagues in calling on key senators to reject the repeal of the medevac bill, which is currently being debate at the federal level. Medevac is working. We know it is working because sick people are receiving the health care they need, despite the government's propensity for falsehoods about the legislation.

Before medevac was introduced, the Minister for Home Affairs, Peter Dutton, ultimately determined if and what medical treatment people held in offshore detention received, and when they received it. I place my trust in the medical profession and medical professionals to make these judgements, not in a politician. In this place, we must all fight against the politics of fear and always strive for the politics of hope.

Politics that rests on popular anger and authoritarianism is sure to fail. History will ultimately judge the pain inflicted by the cruel and inhumane experiment that is Australia's offshore processing regime. I note, for the record, a similar statement was today delivered on this issue by my colleague Senator Griff. I commend him for his continued advocacy on this most important issue concerning our world's refugees. With those words, I commend the motion to the chamber.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. J.S.L. Dawkins.