By Jane Salmon, voluntary refugee advocate for over 11 years.
Introduction:
The facts are obvious.
As Senator Meereen Faruqi has written, this Bill would:
- Create a travel ban on certain countries (it is not clear which ones).
- Send people to jail for at least 1 year if they don’t cooperate with the Government in their own removal to a country they fled.
- Allow any Immigration Minister to overturn visas of refugees who have already been provided protection.
It may also fracture families further.
Immigration matters are growing ever more complex. It’s not like there is going to be a reduction in people fleeing wars any time soon. Stop-gap, kneejerk, partial, piecemeal or reactive solutions are inadequate.
Mechanisms are missing. The Administrative Appeals Tribunal and the Immigration Administration Authority are not fully operational at this time. The Administrative Review Tribunal or ART intended to replace AAT is not yet up and running.
The whole Immigration system needs a comprehensive independent review before other measures are put in place.
Global and domestic Immigration challenges took time to evolve. They require commensurately comprehensive, integrated and detailed solutions.
Immigration decisions must not be based on discrimination, the clumping of individuals together by nationality or arrival mode.
There is a tendency by Governments and voters to scapegoat vulnerable immigrants for economic challenges arising from poor domestic policy or planning. They must be protected from this.
A few criminals seeking protection are no excuse for taking measures that risk treating all refugees harshly.
Governments and political trends change. We cannot trust that the legislation will always be applied in a benign, consistent or reasonable way.
Overall, Department of Immigration needs to replace unaccountable, vague or generalised processing mechanisms. The solutions are broader still than a catch-all Bill that extends Ministerial power without delivering reciprocal responsibility.
Five-year jail terms followed by fines and/or forced deportation for deportation refuseniks is excessive.
Double or triple jeopardy for law breakers (in the form of indefinite detention after a court prescribed sentence and deportation) already discriminates against non-citizens harshly. They’ve already done their sentence time.
“Fast Track” is not fast. Its victims have been through legal ordeals for a decade or more. They paid tax and lawyers while living with uncertainty and while being separated from other relatives. How about an amnesty?
This Migration Act Amendment Bill 2024 exposes systematic problems. It presents the Senate with the opportunity to require higher standards of the Immigration Department while also protecting human rights.
Meanwhile, in Melbourne …
On 11 April 2024 Kalyani Inpakumar, represented the Tamil Refugee Council, participated in a crucial discussion addressing the Migration Legislation (Removal and other Measures) Bill 2024.
Main Argument:
The 2024 Migration Amendment Bill is Risky Yet Fixes Too Little
The Immigration system is already quite arbitrary and a bit of a patchwork.
The Bill is general and sweeping. It might catch out folk who have done their best to stay within the rules.
It would be cruel to tell the most tenacious and their offspring to push off and take their problems elsewhere after over a decade of putting them through the wringer in court after court. They’ve adapted. They studied. They’ve worked. They’ve paid lawyers. We need an amnesty for these people.
Sometimes the most stubborn people are the most afraid. They are not economic migrants seeking a shortcut. How do we distinguish between them?
Golden Ticket Migration is Unfair
A mature nation addresses inequity rather than scapegoating poorer groups and building up elites.
Wellbeing arises from equal opportunity, not class division. This applies to refugees and migrants too.
We’re better than this. The “Fair Go” should start (or stops) at the Australian border.
Certainly, working within the Department of Immigration is hard. People keep coming. Few of the arrivals fully understand the situation they’re in. (There are quite a few faux refugees that can be annoying or worse. Folk fly in on student visas, accept front line jobs and then apply for protection. Criminals need rehabilitating regardless of background. If you truly fear death, don’t take a holiday back home).
Arbitrary Rulings Are Not Fair
Cabinet Ministers occasionally intervene to let iconic families through to Permanent Residency. This seems arbitrary when Government ignores the majority that arrived the same way under similar circumstances and demonstrate the same love of Australia in their commitment to local community. Precedents are not consistently recognised or followed through.
Missing Mechanisms
The Administrative Review Tribunal or ART is not yet up and running. It is intended to replace the AAT:
“On 7 December 2023, the Australian Government introduced legislation which will abolish the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) and replace it with a new body called the Administrative Review Tribunal (ART).
“All cases currently before the AAT will continue. Many cases currently before the AAT will be decided or finalised before the AAT is abolished. All decisions made by the AAT will remain valid and final.
Once the new body is established, any remaining cases will transition to the new body. If you have applied to the AAT for review of a decision and your case is transitioned to the new body, you will not need to submit a new application for review to the body.”
Why care?
When human rights shrink, human authenticity becomes less safe. The happiest nations are the fairest and most equitable. Or so studies tell us.
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Income Inequality Makes Whole Countries Less Happy
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Second generation children should not be punished lifelong for sub-optimal choices made by their parents.
What Emergency?
Iranian activist Arad Nik, who is grateful to have Permanent Residency already, says:
“We unite with a single voice, calling on politicians to halt the impending Migration Amendment Bill 2024, slated for next month. This bill, in its current form, threatens the fabric of compassion and understanding in our immigration system.”
Mr Nik adds:
“The Bill is being touted as a solution to a false emergency. It implies that all people seeking protection visas are gaming a broken application mechanism. If that were so, most would have given up after twelve hard years.”
This sudden Bill does not fix problems that have been around for decades. It papers over 20-year-old failings of previous governments. It punishes applicants for gaps in the refugee admissions process.
It certainly doesn’t deal with the individuals left behind simply because a harried lawyer missed an appointment.
The Bill is far reaching. It’ll certainly give the Minister power to toss away the few bad apples (to who knows where). But what of innocents caught in the same mess?
With notable exceptions, the politicians and public servants who have bumbled and bungled their way through decisions (for which they are not held accountable) still collect salaries and pensions. Improving accountability will help everyone.
The only “emergency” is the potential for further Government embarrassment in the High Court. Measured, comprehensive, far-sighted and mature responses are needed. Media and politicians should be challenged over their part in exacerbating such drama.
What is really at stake? Only our nation’s future.
Kids of blocked asylum seekers are punished for parental decisions. Kids of blocked asylum seekers end up in a form of purgatory. It is hard on developing minds.
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‘An awful nightmare’: Amid a contentious immigration plan, Betia fears for her family
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They work hard to learn in a new language. They see their ambitious school peers go on to uni but they generally cannot afford the international fees they would be charged if they manage to qualify.
On Thursday 11 April 2024, some overlooked children of people lacking permanent resident status spoke up outside the Home Affairs Minister’s Oakleigh electoral office, seeking “A Fair Go”.
These vibrant young folk are brimming with potential and want tertiary study opportunities: not dead ends. Few get scholarships if their visa status is tenuous.
Australian high schools have raised a group of young people capable of becoming doctors, but then we deny them affordable access to university. Blocking their ability is not good for them. Nor is it efficient for the nation and education system that helped raise them to adulthood.
More video interviews are available.
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Young refugee delegation visits Canberra to end a decade of uncertainty
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Challenges in Assessing Individual Circumstances
It is hard to assess all the variables from behind a desk, yet that is what we ask Immigration staff to do. We do not necessarily hold them to account for those choices either.
Are they adequately trained to preside over life and death decisions? This is not like getting a development application or a pet permit.
How do we measure the risk to individuals?
We are aware of nations with the death penalty for homosexuality, but what of unofficial penalties in apparently more relaxed countries. When honour killing is a practice only applied by some religious groups or families, who gets to decide what the real risk is?
What if your close relatives demanded your death after a marital conflict?
What if you had to jump your back fence in the middle of the night to escape the same armed raiders who threatened and then murdered your father and brother?
How do you retrieve and preserve evidence of those threats? You are not a documentarist in that moment, but a fugitive. Perhaps you a really nice one. But no one knows or cares.
How do asylum seekers present evidence when phones are filtered, removed, damaged (let alone replaced with more basic models as they are on Nauru).
Case Studies
Some refugees I meet make a lasting positive impression. They’re not always the most charming, slick or talented of their cohort, but they are the ones that have struggled on heroically, maintained positivity. They dream of short, regular reunions with whatever is left of their families.
They’ve ignored most “othering” and gotten on with work, volunteering and contributing tax. They’ve studied to improve their employability: even when higher education costs them the earth. They’ve dealt with cultural and language transitions while relatives are threatened back home. They do not receive the supports that full citizens of Australia take for granted. They must live from visa to visa or one paperwork hiccup to the next.
Case 1:
There is the bright Iranian mum running a business while she hoists and helps her lovely son with cerebral palsy and an IT qualification. Her back aches. The family is denied NDIS. She helped her daughter afford international uni fees for a Masters in radiography by running a pizza shop. Yet she pays the same tax as any Aussie. She does online training and keeps on keeping on. She has done it harder than most, but also acknowledges the struggles of other young non-disabled migrant kids coming to the end of secondary education. She’s still got empathy.
Case 2:
There is the sweet, sad chap whose lawyer didn’t show up at court. He has no visa. His mates from the same region were granted Permanent Residency in court that very day. They just picked a different lawyer. They are a strong group, and he lives by their charity while volunteering; but where will the Bill leave him? He has been failed by Fast Track. Some immediate family members were recently killed back in his province. Officially, his nation is not at war. In practice, his ethnicity, regional politics, religion and family history make it hard to stay alive there. His minority status means he doesn’t get the chance to move to a distant capital. Nor do his qualifications seem to help his situation.
A Ministerial Intervention application is his only hope, but will the Minister even get time to read it?
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‘Sign here’: high court finds no requirement for minister to read submissions on visa decisions
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Case 3:
Medevacced Kurds from Manus are in a similar position. They are discriminated against by their country. And that is a nation that will not accept repatriation. Why should industrious and creative individuals be punished for international diplomatic failures or their mode of arrival across decades. When is enough?
Gentle Tamils and Rohingyans have also suffered offshore.
Case 4:
All the young adults who grew up here without the comfort or rights that accompany permanent residency. They cannot afford international tertiary fees for tertiary courses. They have earned the marks but cannot readily raise the fees while undertaking demanding study. Indeed, we are literally missing out on doctors.
Alex, age 20:
“I have lived in Australia for 10 years. Since completing year 12, I have completed a Diploma in Construction. I want to go on to do a degree in Construction Project Management. My teachers were keen to organise a scholarship for me. However, I can’t do this now, as I got a letter from Home Affairs in December last year to say my visa has changed, and I no longer have study rights.”
“My younger brother is doing Year 12 this year. He wants to study sports science, but now he does not have study rights, he won’t be able to enrol in University. So now he’s starting to lose interest in school.” (Source: ASRC).
Where Does Australia Start or End?
Oversimplifications like the fear-based “sovereign borders” doctrine will not stem the arrival of people trying to flee crowded and squalid refugee camps. We need to extend and improve regional processing.
Using Nauru as an offshore centre paid for (but not run by) Australian Government seems convoluted. We need to protect workers and detainees under Australian laws rather than play shell games with an ever-changing array of contractors.
More and Better Regional Processing Centres May Slow Boats
How do people get here when they are already on the run?
Process people nearer the source of crisis.
Orderly, secure assessment for Immigration intake requires calm queues at checkpoint where individuals can recover, study intake rules and then pull together and translate their case data.
There are instead overcrowded, squalid refugee camps like Cox’s Bazaar where disease, floods, fire, hurricane, bad sanitation and inadequate power make every single week even more arduous for Rohingyans fleeing massacre in Myanmar.
There is a long wait for UNHCR recognition there or in Malaysia and Indonesia.
An Amnesty for Fast Track Victims is essential.
“Fast Track” is broken and slow. They got cursory assessments. The remaining “Fast Track arrivals” who have floundered through several courts across a decade need to be allowed to stay, not punished further. They are already working and adapting. Living in perpetual flux is damaging. Noone can afford so much litigation. There are only around 10,000 of them. It is hardly an inundation.
Policies influenced by international trends in handling refugees or national security need to be reviewed for objectivity.
An amnesty for those who were Medevacced here from offshore will not start boats. In fact, the boats never completely stopped. Many vessels are turned back. Moreover, planes bring many more people daily.
Accountability in Detention:
Offshore detention on Nauru entails management proxies free from press or impartial police scrutiny. The previous iteration of detention on Nauru offered health care that was substandard, conditions that were squalid, minimal protection and justice that was absent. Now we learn that even access to family WhatsApp chats and online human rights information is filtered.
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We need transparency and accountability offshore or to accept and manage our responsibilities onshore.
Our nation is not looking good here.
Even Labor Party members and donors are dismayed.
No doubt refugees vote and donate across the political spectrum.
Can the Senate Rescue Government From Itself?
Overall, individual human rights are needed more than ever.
The Senate has an important opportunity to prove its worth. If Senators of all parties send the Bill back for redrafting, all sorts of vulnerable Australians may well thank them for that invention across years to come.
It’s not just a flex. It is a necessity. We have been failed by the two-party system. Labor has no courage. The Leader of the Opposition is not motivated to clear up a mess over which he presided. It is easier to scapegoat migrants for challenging situations. There is no “emergency”.
Conclusion:
It is time to try to replace the entire Migration Act after a detailed independent immigration policy review that is more mature and collaborative, not reactive.
Please reject this Bill. Please demand better. It is time to care.
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This is the link on X to Shoebridge’s Senate hearing yesterday.
And from the Asylum Resource Centre:
And this:
I get really worked up when I talk about this. But I am friends with a young woman who was raped by her stepfather, in Iran, when she was 14, and was then going to be forcibly married to a man almost old enough to be her grandfather by her stepfather, and she arrived in Australia by boat. Potty Boy, being the evil bastard that he is, despite the tribunal not fully understanding the situation in Iran, refused to help! Forcing her to return to Iran would be an unforgivable crime against humanity, especially as she is now married to a kind and gentle man with whom she has a child.
This type of bill is what I would have expected from Tone the Botty or Potty Boy, not Labor.
Support can be given to the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre here:
One of the posts above from Twitter suggest what the issue is locally where original ideas and policies go to die, is a claim that it’s Trump policy.
He had Bannon and Miller advising, both were channeling their muse dec. white nationalist John ‘passive eugenics’ Tanton of Rockefeller – Exxon – ZPG fame (with Paul ‘Population Bomb’ Ehrlich) via now CIS Center for Immigration Studies and FAIR Federation of Americans for Immigration Reform, to inform Fox News and MSM; Tanton admired white Australia policy, visited and was hosted by SPA.
One can see SPA paw prints over talking points and Parliamentary committees hiding behind the fossil fuel faux science science constructs ‘sustainability’, ‘carrying capacity’, ‘limits to growth’, ‘resilience’ etc.; eugenics or socio-Darwinism of both ‘free market’ and far right.
SPLC described this bunch well obsessing about immigration and/or ‘population growth’ using presentation methods of climate science denial* e.g. ‘jazzed up stats’ and:
‘TSCP) routinely publishes race-baiting articles penned by white nationalists. The press is a program of U.S. Inc, the foundation created by John Tanton, the racist founder and principal ideologue of the modern nativist movement. TSCP puts an academic veneer of legitimacy over what are essentially racist arguments about the inferiority of today’s immigrants.’
https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/social-contract-press
Locally that means RW MSM, influencers etc. daily focus and dog whistling is on the NOM net OS migration, falsely described as ‘immigration’ (mostly temporary churn over) but short term ‘data noise’ & ‘outliers’; focus on the weather.
Conversely, ignoring the permanent population trends into the future of below replacement fertility, working age decline and increasing old age dependency ratios; ignoring long term warming.
Too easy…..
Just did a couple of adds
The man hailed as the ‘Bollard Hero’ has been granted an offer of citizenship, a poignant recognition in the wake of the Sydney tragedy. This commendable gesture underscores a deeper narrative: while friends of a refugee security guard offer their blood in an organised donations drive impacting the lives of thousands of Australians —such noble acts are frequently overlooked in the broader discourse.
Regrettably, the commendations for everyday heroism among the 10,000 refugees contributing to our society remain scarce. Instead, they are met with the looming specter of a new “emergency” bill, casting an unwarranted shadow over 5,000 lives.
As our leaders navigate the optics of policy and politics, the essence of humanity seems forgotten.
It’s time for a paradigm shift, where kindness isn’t an anomaly but the prevailing ethos.
We are desperate for leaders who nurture compassion and allow it to resonate through our collective actions, until it, too, goes viral.
https://amp.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/apr/15/bondi-knife-attack-sydney-ahmadiyya-muslims-mourn-faraz-tahir
Donating blood in Faraz Tahir’s name.
I also recommend the Lifeblood team “10,000 Refugees Contributing to Australia”
It seems odd that asylum seekers are not mentioned, in your causerie, Jane? ps I find it difficult to challenge the difference between asylum seekers and refugees. The latter, who arrive in Aust and leave their family behind are unlikely to be genuine. The former, overwhelmingly male, are unlikely to be anything more than well off economic seekers.. I also find it hard to reconcile the dilemma of muslim people from Muslim countries being given refugee status simply on that basis. Yet maintain the religion from which they were given refugee status?
Hi WAM,
You’d probably find a detailed discussion of terminologies too “woke” to matter.
Let’s just leave it there.
wam, when you do a submission there are a set of guidelines to follow.
Jane would have been following those guidelines.
Wam,
Asylum seeker is a term that is usually replaced by the term refugee these days.
UNHCR recognition of refugee status is common to many people who resorted to unregulated maritime arrival in the past.
A refugee is not banned from coming by boat under international law. As such they are not asylum seekers. Nor are they illegal. Whether they are welcomed or their application is accepted is another matter.
Islam itself is not the same the world over. Theocratic state laws should not be confused with every variant of the religion itself. Some cultural forms have more acceptance of working women, for example. It evolves differently the world over: much like any other religion.
There are unskilled people whose migration is driven by economic pressure.
Some may attempt to enter under protection visas.
More often, our country’s government under-estimates or misses the danger faced by individuals in places like Afghanistan before the fall of Kabul. Some dangers are hard to document while you are also running for your life.
The bias here restricts intake numbers but can be arbitrary or tokenistic.
Overall we don’t pull our weight given the global scale of wars causing refugees. Yet we often participate in wars.
I suspect this is too vague to be persuasive. Many academics, organisations and journalists have researched and written on this topic. ASRC & RACOA are but two.
It’s a bit late at night to be writing. Apologies.
This government is trying to tidy up the mess that the coalition had made of detained asylum seekers and refugees, going back to John Howard.
Clearly, as the HC pointed out, you cannot detain people indefinitely it’s a humanitarian and separation of powers issue – only a court of law can order detention and then not indefinitely..
The govt. need to find a way to manage asylum seekers including those who come as tourists but then claim asylum based on a variety of reasons and then resist repatriation because they claim they will be persecuted if they return to their home country.
It is not an easy issue to resolve as depending on how it addressed we could end up with people from all over the world coming here as tourists and then making asylum claims based on their claimed ‘sexual orientation’ and thus resisting returning home as they claim they will be persecuted.
We need solutions based humanitarian considerations as well as the rule of law, something the former government were not prepared to address.
I have a great deal of faith in our High Court and when they find out for us what our constitutional and humanitarian obligations are, we can then have our parliament fashion legislation that has compassion and takes into account the need to effectively regulate our borders.
I’m a lot more confident that this government will do a better job than Spud Dutton ever could.
My old classmate Jack Howard was not intellectually equipped for much beyond routine suburban law functions, but, he was followed as conservative head by a line of virtual unemployables in a fair real world.., Nelson, Turnbull (and again later), Abbott the abyssmal, Mad maggot Morrison (or ten of them) and now, Peter Duckwit-Futton, a drop cop, out and about, barebrained and dullskulled. It is a mess of decades still needing serious reclamation. This current government, something less than a delight, even disappointing to the pushy few extreme radicals, has done fairly well, out of sight of the trailing conservatives. B Joyce (burp, prod) and P Dutton (gag, heave) cannot do a decent thing, Forget Little prong, a tiny noise needing the oil of donors and patrons. The simmering problem for conservatiives here is that the ranks contain noisy nohopers, money grubbling careerists and fraudy proto-fascists…
Terence,
A few problems for Labor stem from retaining public servants from Coalition eras in Immigration.
The legislation is too broad. It can affect 375 kids whose parents came here but were tangled up in AAT red tape.
Cheers
Phil,things might be looking up.Simon Holmes a Court’s Climate 200 which gave us the Teals last election, are targeting 20 of the Lying Nasty Party’s seats next time, including Boofhead Dutton’s seat of Dickson (1.7% margin),and National seats as well.If that’s not bothering them,it fucking soon will be.Article in last week’s Saturday Paper.
https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/climate-200-targets-20-more-seats-including-dutton-s-20240417-p5fkgg
Thanks Jane,my mistake.Also gets a mention in Crikey today..the news is still good.
Good to know, Harry!
We will hopefully get a more nuanced response from several Labor senators.
Fingers crossed!
WAM,
I wanted to go back to a small but fairly important point about religion.
From the outside, Islam may seem monolithic. It is in the interests of other religions to highlight any perceived negatives in alternate faiths. Nations do this around wars too.
However, as a non-practicing Christian in a secular state, I can celebrate any religious or cultural festival I choose … without subscribing to the whole package.
I can do Christmas, Passover, Eid, Holi, Pongal, Divali, Dharma Day and Wesak … or nothing.
I can convert to any peaceful variant of any religion I choose.
It is that freedom that many people come for. Perhaps Australians are the richer for having these amazing choices.
A lot of cultural or racial tensions are also less extreme in a multicultural environment.
Long may it last.