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May 16th, 2013 
CONTROVERSIAL legislation to excise the Australian mainland from the migration zone to deter asylum seeker boat arrivals has passed parliament.
Federal Labor, with the backing of the coalition, on Thursday successfully steered its excision legislation through the Senate and the lower house – a move labelled by the Australian Greens as a stain on our national character.
It will mean all asylum seekers arriving by boat can be processed at offshore facilities on Nauru and Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island.
Previously, only people arriving on Ashmore Island, the Cartier Islands, Christmas Island and the Cocos Islands were subject to offshore processing.
The Howard government tried to excise the Australian mainland from the migration zone in 2006, but failed after a backbench revolt led by Liberal moderates.
Immigration Minister Brendan O’Connor said the legislative change would discourage people from embarking on life-threatening boat journeys.
Greens leader Christine Milne slammed Labor for backing a plan it was strongly opposed to in 2006.
“This legislation that we are debating here today is a stain on our national character,” she told the chamber.
Liberal senator Michaelia Cash said the coalition strongly supported the bill.
She claimed Mr O’Connor came to coalition MPs “quite literally on bended knee” on Thursday and “begged” them to support the government’s legislation.
But a spokeswoman for Mr O’Connor denied the minister held any meetings with the coalition about the legislation on Thursday.
Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young said Labor was “doing all the Liberal Party’s dirty work” in “beating up on refugees, dog whistling on immigration and stripping away laws that protect the most vulnerable in our community”.
Australia was contravening the United Nation’s refugee convention by discriminating against asylum seekers based on their mode of arrival, she said.
The government was creating a “damaged generation” by keeping children in detention.
“We are subjecting these children to child abuse, to institutionalised abuse,” Senator Hanson-Young told parliament.
The Migration Amendment (Unauthorised Maritime Arrivals and Other Measures) Bill 2012 now awaits royal assent.
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