Anna Burke has represented the seat of Chisholm in the House of Representatives for the ALP since 1998. She is the former Speaker of the House (2012–2013), and has been a consistent advocate for asylum seekers. She will retire at the next election.
Q. We have just seen the Papua New Guinea government find that the detention of the asylum seekers on Manus Island is illegal. Do you think that shows that there is a more robust sense of human rights in PNG than Australia?
A. No, but I think it demonstrates that the law understands better the UN Charter of Human Rights than either the PNG or the Australian governments.
Nobody has taken this case about offshore processing to the High Court here, nor could they because technically it is in PNG, but as you saw with the Malaysian Solution, when they took it to the High Court here it was overturned.
So I think our legal, constitutional framework — I wouldn't say it was more lacking than the PNG government in any way size, shape or form, I just think it demonstrates that if you bring these into the realm of the legal sphere, then the legal system says you have to abide by the UN Charter of Human Rights, which neither government has been doing.
Does it reflect badly on Australia that we have no articulated set of legal rights in our constitution, such as freedom from arbitrary detention without trial?
I think our constitution is lacking in many areas, but I think this gets down to basically, we have — on all sides of politics — not been abiding by the UN Charters that we have adopted and signed and that we request other countries to follow. Instead of maintaining a humane and dignified approach to this difficult, complex situation we have played political football with it.
So I think there are issues to be addressed in the longer term, but in the here and now we need to deal with the 800 people on Manus who have been living in this horrendous, limbo situation for almost four years now.
"Instead of maintaining a humane and dignified approach to this difficult, complex situation we have played political football with it." — Anna Burke
Many people have spoken up in support of asylum seekers since the offshore camps on Manus and Nauru were reopened. Petitions have been signed, letters have been sent to members of Parliament,