With the government facing another High Court test on Wednesday over whether it can legally detain people who refuse to co-operate with moves to deport them,a Senate inquiry into the government’s latest detention crackdown laws has heard the bill that the government tried to rush through the last sitting of parliament was seriously flawed.
Immigration Minister Andrew Giles says the government’s deportation laws and its safeguards are “entirely appropriate”.Alex Ellinghausen
Immigration Minister Andrew Giles’ controversial bill has three main parts:threatening jail time for people who don’t co-operate with their own deportation;revisiting protection findings against people who have fled perilous countries;and blocking people from countries who don’t accept the involuntary return of their own citizens.
“Some people smugglers may seek to use some of the measures in the proposed legislation to market their services to vulnerable potential irregular immigrants,suggesting there is no legal way for them to travel to Australia,” Home Affairs’ submission said in reference to the third measure.
The department said the bill would also enable it to more easily deport nearly 5000 people refusing to co-operate.
The submission added that risk of people smugglers exploiting the laws could be reduced by communicating the exemptions to the bans directly to Iranians,Russians and others from nations that refuse the involuntary return of their citizens – namely,that the ban would not apply to
immediate family members of citizens and permanent residents.
Opposition home affairs spokesman James Paterson said the department had admitted what the Coalition had previously warned.
Shadow home affairs spokesperson James Paterson.Alex Ellinghausen
“This bill risks perversely encouraging desperate people to get on boats again,” he said.
Operation Sovereign Borders’ Rear Admiral Brett Sonter said the submission didn’t relate to any specific element of the bill and wasn’t a “new risk”.
“We know that people smugglers look at any changes,whether they are real or perceived,and they sell them,” he said.
The arrival on Australian shores this month of a third boat of asylum seekers in four months added to Labor’s political headache as it grapples with the High Court’s landmark ruling last November that made indefinite immigration detention illegal and led to the subsequent release of at least 151 former detainees.
Giles refused to comment on the case on ABC radio on Monday,but said the government “shouldn’t be frustrated by an individual’s refusal to cooperate in terms of our capacity to deport them.”
“What these[provisions] do is to apply to a very small group of people with appropriate safeguards,” he said.
Home Affairs officials facing the inquiry said there were up to 200 people in immigration detention who were refusing to co-operate with moves to deport them,nearly 4500 people on a pathway-to-removal visa in the community and about 250 more people – including those released following the High Court decision in November – who could be affected.
Former immigration department deputy secretaries Abul Rizvi and Peter Hughes warned that black-banning entire nationalities would not persuade their governments to take back citizens who don’t wish to return.
“Threats of visa bans will not change their behaviour,” said Hughes,who like Rizvi was once tasked with trying to get Iran to change its immigration policies.
Immigration lawyers fronting the inquiry said the bill could also capture several thousand people whose protection claims failed under the former government’s visa fast-track regime,a scheme criticised by Giles during his time in opposition and which the government has pledged to abolish.
Home Affairs officials said people in that cohort could lodge a request for ministerial intervention.
Australian Human Rights Commission president Rosalind Croucher called the entire bill “problematic”,while the Immigration Advice and Rights Centre also warned domestic violence victims placed on bridging visas could be affected as there were no other appropriate visas for them.
Piumetharshika Kaneshan,a 19-year-old Canberra student,told the inquiry that under the bill she could be sent to Sri Lanka despite knowing nothing about the country.
“We thought the Australian community accepted us until we learnt the government was looking to pass this law,” said Kaneshan,whose family is in a Federal Circuit Court fight to stay in the country after arriving in Australia more than a decade ago.
“If I was to return to Sri Lanka,I would be frightened for[my] life … as a woman,I can’t imagine living there.”
Paterson and Greens senator David Shoebridge both accused Labor of silencing diaspora groups. “This is basically a gag on multicultural communities,stopping them from communicating their absolute rejection of Labor’s anti-refugee and travel ban bill,” Shoebridge said.
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