Terri Butler (Griffith, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This Turnbull government bill is reminiscent of President Trump's Muslim ban executive order, and that is why we are so concerned about it. It is a grave shame, because the balance of the bill contains very important changes which we are very supportive of, including the SmartGate technology, which the tourism sector would no doubt like to see passed sooner rather than later. It is a very great shame that the government has seen fit to include such a controversial provision in the visa revalidation schedule to this bill.

By that schedule, the Turnbull government is seeking to give the immigration minister the power to personally decide that a class of persons must have their visa revalidated. This bill does not contain any guidance on how a class might be described, and there is a lack of clarity about that. But, if you look at the bill, it seems that the minister could decide that all persons from a particular country, from a particular ethnicity, from a particular religion, must immediately be in a position to seek to have their visas revalidated. Of course, the effect, if the visa is not revalidated, is that there is a cessation of the visa. In deciding on issuing the instrument determining that a class of persons must have their visa revalidated, the minister has to decide whether the minister thinks it is in the public interest to do so.

There are two issues that arise from that. Firstly, it is not a question of whether it is actually in the public interest to issue this instrument deciding that a class of persons must be submitted to visa revalidation, but it is sufficient if the minister thinks it is in the public interest, which is a much more subjective way of triggering the power to create this instrument. Secondly, the test for the minister in making the decision about this is the public interest, which is a pretty amorphous and ill-defined concept. There is a situation where, if this bill were to be passed in its current form with this power included in it, the minister for immigration could personally decide to require that a specified class of persons complete revalidation checks. There is no power for the parliament to overturn that decision, no power for the parliament to change the terms of it. The only parliamentary scrutiny of this instrument created by the minister is that the minister has to lay it before the parliament, but they do not have to lay it before the parliament immediately. There are two periods at the end of each of the parliamentary half-years where these instruments are laid before the parliament so, if it is done in the first half of the year, you have to lay it before the parliament within 15 sitting days of 1 July; and, if it is done in the second half of the year, then, similarly, you lay it before the parliament subsequent to that.

This is a situation where we are being asked in a bill that should really only be dealing with the non-controversial and broadly supported measures to include a provision that would say to whoever happens to be the immigration minister at the time, 'Here is virtually unfettered power to decide that anyone in Australia on a visa—it does not matter whether it is a permanent visa or a temporary visa—who is from any given country must resubmit to a visa revalidation process.' You only pass the revalidation check on the basis of the minister's satisfaction—that is the test in the revalidation check provision. It is a question of whether the minister is satisfied that there is no adverse information about the person seeking to have their visa revalidated or, if there is adverse information, that it would be unreasonable for that information to be taken into account. This is another test in this set of provisions that turns on the minister's satisfaction, not on whether there actually is a pass or fail or by some objective standard, but whether the minister is satisfied as to whether the visa should be revalidated. If the visa is not revalidated, the consequence is that the visa ceases to operate and, ultimately, people will have to leave the country and not return until they have revalidated their visa.

This bill is purportedly about the 10-year Chinese visitor visas but, if you look at the revalidation provisions in schedule 1 to the bill, you will see that there is no reference to the 10-year Chinese visitor visas, nor to any specific class of visa. If you look at the words of the bill, rather than what the government has said outside about the bill, you will see that it is obviously intended that Minister Dutton would have broad power in relation to all classes of visa to call people up by class for visa revalidation.

This is a very different power from the types of power that have previously existed under migration law which have been directed to individuals—for example, the character test. The character test is about whether a specific individual meets the character requirements to obtain a visa and come into our country. This is a very, very different kettle of fish, because it says the minister does not have to have any particular individual basis for saying that someone's visa will have to be revalidated or they will lose their right to have a valid visa. It is just a class-based thing. In describing a class, a minister deciding—for example, along the lines of the US executive order from the now President Trump—might decide to choose, say, seven Muslim-majority nations and decide that everybody who was in Australia on any form of visa from any of those nations must submit to this process, where the default position is that your visa will cease, unless you satisfy the minister that it should be revalidated. I think most Australians would not be particularly happy with the idea of any minister for immigration having that much power with such limited scrutiny by parliament and without any power by parliament to alter or overturn the decision that is made.

Of course, we understand that the government are interested in what it can do to ensure that there is scrutiny with respect to the 10-year China visitor visas, but that is not how they have drafted the bill. That is not how this bill has been drafted. Either they have misunderstood their own legislation or it is more likely to be the case that they have deliberately included in this bill a much broader power than has previously been represented to the nation and to members of this parliament. The opposition obviously have had some concerns about this.

Our shadow minister, the member for Blair, who spoke in this debate yesterday, has sought to engage with the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection in relation to the bill and the problems with it. He has reached out to the minister. He has done so following the Senate inquiries, where issues with this bill were highlighted. Unfortunately, the minister has not taken the opportunity to seek to work with Labor to, firstly, ensure that the noncontroversial aspects of this bill can be conveniently passed or, secondly, to respond to the genuine and serious concerns that we have about this wide-ranging and almost unfettered power that he wishes to have conferred upon himself. That, I would suggest, is not just an example of this minister's refusal to negotiate on the terms of this power; it is also quite irresponsible. I suspect that the tourism sector will be very disappointed by the minister's conduct in this regard.

It would have been very easy to split off schedule 1 from this bill and allow the other schedules to be passed. It would have been very easy to have the SmartGate expansion, for example, passed very quickly and very conveniently through this House, if the minister had done the right thing and worked with Labor to ensure that that happened. Instead, he has insisted on pressing ahead with this bill in the form in which it was drafted with this controversial, wide-ranging and potentially very oppressive power to discriminate against people based on a class definition conjured up by the minister on any basis whatsoever. That is a great shame.

It is a great shame that the government did not listen when these issues were raised in the Senate inquiry. It is a great shame that the government has refused to negotiate with the shadow minister. It is a very great shame that we are in a position now where we are genuinely having to have an argument about whether powers reminiscent of those being exercised by the now US President Donald Trump should be conferred on Minister Dutton. Those things are a very great shame. I know that my electorate would not want me to stay silent while such powers were being sought to be conferred on the immigration minister, the member for Dickson. My electorate would not support this idea that we should, as a nation, confer on a member of the executive the power to decide on any class of persons he likes and to then be able to cause significant detriment to people who happen to be members of that class.

I think my constituents expect the Labor Party, of which I am a member, to speak out against this sort of creeping executive power that could be used for oppressive purposes, and that is what I intend to do when I am here in this place. My constituents would not want to see that. We have all seen the press reports from LAX. We have all seen the press reports of the protests that are happening at the United States airports. We have seen the press reports of the courts being in a position to consider whether that particular executive order from the new administration is constitutionally valid. We have all seen the press reports of people who have been unable to get home to their families because of the travel bans that have happened in the United States. My constituents would not support those measures and they certainly would not support this idea that Minister Dutton should be given this virtually unfettered power to do things that are very much reminiscent of what is happening in the US at the moment.

Australia has had a non-discriminatory immigration framework in place for the last four decades. We should not be signing up to Trump-style immigration measures that give the minister this virtually unfettered power. So we are going to do what Minister Dutton should have done. We are going to move an amendment in the Senate to remove schedule 1 of the bill. We are very happy to work with the government to create a visa revalidation framework that is fair. In the meantime, we call on the government—and I repeat the call that the shadow minister has made—to work with Labor to get schedule 1 out, renegotiate it, and to pass the other provisions that are now being held up because of this government's inability to work across the aisle to negotiate and to find a way forward to get non-controversial legislation passed.

It is not just Labor that have concerns with this bill. I have really sought to emphasise why I believe this bill is so concerning in its current form with the virtually unfettered power being conferred on Minister Dutton. But there are significant stakeholders who have raised concerns about this bill through the Senate inquiry processes. The Migration Institute of Australia made submissions in which it reserved its full support for the bill due to concerns related to this exact power that we have been talking about today. The Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law has made submissions raising concerns about it. They have said that they are concerned about the minister's power to decide that it is in the public interest that certain visa holders must complete a revalidation check and raised issues about the lack of definition of 'public interest', and about the extent to which this would give the minister discretion to impose checks on any number of visa holders.

The Law Council of Australia has also raised a number of concerns with schedule 1 of the bill—the schedule that Labor are very worried about—and those concerns include the fact that it does not seem to be either necessary or proportionate to the bill's intended objective, because the power that is being conferred on the minister has the potential to apply to all classes of visas not just the 10-year Chinese visas. It also raises concerns about the broad powers to be conferred on the minister, the very limited explanation as to the purpose of those broad powers, the fact that the instrument by which this power would be exercised would not be disallowable by the parliament and the fact that there are already existing powers that can be used in the Migration Act to address some of the concerns that have been raised.

The ANU College of Law migration law program has also raised very similar concerns about the power proposed to be conferred upon the minister. They say:

The affect of making such a determination that bypasses parliamentary disallowance increases the potential harm the legislation can do to both individuals and to Australia's reputation.

You have seen what has happened in other countries that have imposed unreasonable migration bans on people from a particular country or ethnicity and what that has done to tourism and international education, which would, of course, be terrible for our nation too. Those are the concerns, and we hope that the government will work with Labor to resolve them.

Ross Hart (Bass, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Migration Amendment (Visa Revalidation and Other Measures) Bill 2016 currently before the House. The purpose of this bill is to amend the Migration Act 1958 in three broad ways. It will enable the use of contactless SmartGate technology during immigration clearance, it will clarify when a visa ceases to be of effect under the Migration Act, and it will also introduce a new revalidation check framework for visas.

Let me start by noting that there are elements of this bill that Labor took to the last election. Measures are included ensuring our competiveness as a nation in the Asia-Pacific region, removing ambiguity in current legislation, improving technology that supports greater flows of people and minimising delay whilst maintaining the ability to identify persons of concern.

This bill also supports the pilot of a proposed 10-year validity visitor visa, created in part with the aim of attracting visitors from the world's fastest growing outbound tourist market—that is, China and India. The 10-year visitor visa will encourage repeat visits to Australia by genuine tourists and business people, hopefully giving this economy an edge over similar markets such as the United States and Europe.

Tourism Australia reports that visitors from China generated $8.3 billion in total expenditure in 2015. China is already our largest source of tourism, worth over $5 billion. It would seem fair to assume, as the government has done with this pilot visa program, that increased visitor numbers to Australia from China will continue to translate into significant benefits for our economy.

However, Australia's visa costs impact upon our competitiveness as a nation in the Asia-Pacific region. There is, of course, an imperative to ensure that every discretionary cost within the government's control is minimised. Labor plans to undertake an audit of Australia's tourist visa offering for each of our main target markets and to undertake an assessment of how that offering compares to our major competitors.

With respect to the Chinese tourism market, Labor will review the cost of the 10-year multiple entry visa so that it is competitive with that for Chinese citizens visiting, for example, the US and the EU. We plan to introduce an online visa application in both English and Mandarin which can be submitted online anytime, as well as reduce the processing time for visas submitted online to within 48 hours.

Labor will also continue the rollout of SmartGate at our borders, as enabled by this bill, whilst exploring and investing in new technologies which can further reduce delays and modernise existing systems. Under this legislation, the contactless technology is to be rolled out for SmartGate in major airports from May 2017. The use of contactless SmartGate technology during immigration clearance will speed processing times, as the technology uses biometric capabilities to facilitate self-processing for up to 90 per cent of international travellers. SmartGate can also confirm a traveller's identity without the need for manually presenting a passport using live facial mapping compared to a verified image from departmental holdings.

I would also note that amendments contained in this bill act to remove an existing ambiguity as to whether a 'ceasing event' under certain sections of the Migration Act can apply to a visa that has been granted but not in effect. By clarifying the circumstances in which a visa can cease to be in effect, this bill operates to provide certainty under the act.

From what I have described so far, this legislation appears to be run-of-the-mill, straightforward legislation. For two of the three amendments so far contained in the bill, that is more or less true. What I would like to draw attention to, however, is that the legislative framework contained in this bill by which visa holders may be required to undergo a 'revalidation check' at one or more points during the visa period has some significant problems.

On the face of it, with respect to the introduction of the 10-year visitor visa, a revalidation check would seem to be a sensible measure. Certainly a person who is granted such a visa at any point in time may experience a change in their personal circumstances over a 10-year period, meaning that, for whatever reason, it may be no longer appropriate that they are granted entry into Australia. In his speech, delivered on 19 October 2016, the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection made much of the fact that it is necessary to manage the risks associated with granting a visa for a period of 10 years. The minister went on to say:

This 'revalidation' will be used to ensure that visa holders continue to meet genuine temporary entrant, identity, health, character, passport, national security and other criteria over the 10-year period.

The minister also said the following:

… schedule 1 of the bill also introduces a 'public interest' revalidation check to manage specific, serious, or time-critical risks in relation to an identified cohort of visa holders. In such circumstances, issuing a personal ministerial revalidation requirement will immediately prevent specified visa holders from being able to travel to and enter Australia until they successfully revalidate their visa. This will ensure that we have up-to-date information on an individual's circumstances and we can effectively mitigate potential risks to the Australian public, while providing a streamlined mechanism to facilitate travel as appropriate.

What is not sensible—what is in fact of great concern, certainly to me and to the Labor Party—is that under this bill the visa revalidation check is not limited to the 10-year visitor visa category. Rather, the visa revalidation check could be applied to the holder of any Australian visa. Let me be clear: this legislation provides the minister for immigration the power to require a revalidation check of any category of visa, including protection visas, spouse or family visas, or permanent resident visas. Let me repeat that last point: permanent residents of this country may be required to undergo revalidation checks upon criteria to be determined by the minister.

The bill further provides the minister the power to determine that a specified class of person holding a visa of a prescribed kind must complete a revalidation check if the minister determines that it is in the public interest to do. To top this all off, this determination is not a disallowable instrument. The minister is only required to provide a statement to the parliament. There is no scope for parliamentary oversight.

On 10 November 2016 the bill was referred to the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs for inquiry and report. The committee tabled its report on 28 November 2016, with the majority report recommending that the bill be passed. The committee noted concerns from interest groups regarding the visa revalidation system and the oversight mechanism in place but was satisfied that the proposed measures were 'necessary and justified' and would 'lead to good outcomes for both the integrity of the Australian immigration system and the national economy'. In regard to the specific public interest revalidation checks, the committee encouraged the government to consider that the ministerial exercise of powers in relation to those checks would be subject to disallowance by the Senate.

The question of oversight of the exercise of power by this parliament is not an abstract consideration, in my submission. The power reserved to the minister is broad and discretionary. As the bill is presently drafted, there are effectively no limits upon the exercise of the power, to such an extent that a minister might, in my view, make a decision requiring revalidation which would otherwise offend, for example, the Racial Discrimination Act, in that a class of persons might be selected by a criterion that would normally be prohibited. There is an open question as to whether other legislation, in particular federal antidiscrimination laws, might operate to place limitations on the exercise of the minister's power. It might be the case that a ministerial determination that applied to a particular class of persons on the basis of race or some other objectionable criteria would be subject to legal challenge as breaching provisions under the RDA. It is not a stretch to suggest that recent criticism of executive orders issued by President Trump with respect to immigration controls affecting permanent residents—in that case residents holding so-called 'green cards'—could equally apply here, but in this case to an express power that is proposed to be granted to the minister by virtue of this legislation. In such a case we, as a parliament, would stand condemned. Put yet another way, the exercise of this broad power may be unconstrained and not subject to review or oversight except through expensive legal challenge.

Selection of a class of individuals by reference to race or any other characteristic, upon public interest grounds, might be permitted. This should not be a power that is given to a minister except in specific, not general, circumstances and certainly not without oversight in this place or administrative review. Public interest grounds such as health, national security, compliance with the law and the like are not criteria that provide effective limitations upon the exercise of this power in a bona fide manner. Rather, a minister might see those public interest grounds as an opportunity to characterise or dress up the circumstances of the case to justify acting against a group of individuals, whether by reference to race, religion or other criteria.

Although the minister's explanatory memorandum states the revalidation check is intended to support the proposed introduction, on trial, of a specific new, longer validity visitor visa—that is, the Chinese 10-year visa—the bill itself does not link to any particular visa or visa type. As indicated earlier, it confers on the minister a broad discretion to prescribe in regulations any kind of visa as being subject to revalidation requirements. Regulations made to prescribe a visa for the purpose of the proposed subsections 96B(1) and 96E(1) will be subject to parliamentary scrutiny via the normal disallowance process; however, the minister's determination that a particular class of persons holding this prescribed visa type must complete a revalidation check would not be subject to the same disallowance process. As 'public interest' is not defined under the Migration Act, the proposed provision gives the minister the very broadest discretion.

A revalidation check is defined as a check as to whether there is any adverse information relating to a person who holds a visa. 'Adverse information' is not defined in the legislation. A visa holder will pass the revalidation check if the minister is satisfied there is no adverse information relating to the person or that it is reasonable to disregard any adverse information relating to the person. The bill does not specify the types of information a visa holder may be required to provide. When a revalidation check is required, a written notice must be given to the visa holder, specifying how that person is to complete the revalidation check. The explanatory memorandum notes:

Adverse information … is to be given its ordinary general meaning when considering whether the information relating to the person is adverse. Whether the information is adverse will also depend on the circumstances of each particular case and depend on the visa held by the person as a revalidation check will generally be directed to determining whether the person continues to meet the criteria for the visa that has been granted.

The Law Council of Australia has raised concerns with respect to the broad definition of adverse information currently used in the migration regulations in the context of employer sponsorship and nomination.

It noted that this covers a wide range of activities committed not only by the relevant person but also by an associated person, and does not relate to either the criteria for the grant of the visa or the matters which may expose a person to visa cancellation under the existing provisions of the Migration Act. Also, the ANU College of Law Migration Law Program pointed to the broad range of matters covered by the definition and queried whether a similar definition will be inserted into the migration regulations to apply in the context of the revalidation checks. The explanatory memorandum to this bill does not provide clarification on this issue.

In summary, therefore, Labor is not prepared to pass this legislation unamended. We will be moving amendments to the legislation in the other place. It is not appropriate for us to simply pass this legislation. This parliament will stand condemned if we give this minister the power to act with the broadest discretion permitted by this legislation. Thank you.

Matt Keogh (Burt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also rise to speak on the Migration Amendment (Visa Revalidation and Other Measures) Bill 2016.

There comes a moment in the life of every minister when they have to consider what sort of minister they want to be and what sort of minister they want to be known for being. This legislation, in part, represents such a moment. There is actually only one part of this legislation that is problematic. The remainder—the 10-year Chinese visitor visas and the expansion of SmartGate—are all supported by Labor. The problem is with the revalidation provisions.

Almost as concerning as the provisions through this section has been the minister's approach to how he wishes—or, rather, how he does not wish—to deal with them. The minister is digging in over what is essentially just bad or sloppy drafting. The ability that these provisions provide to require revalidation of course is not in any way limited. It provides the capacity for a minister to provide a notice to a broad class of persons, limited only to a visa class which is prescribed in regulation—again, something that can be set by the minister. This provides the executive with a huge range of powers for a class of persons—not any one individual visa holder—upon any reasonable suspicion or basis.

Critical to all of this, of course, is that a regulation or a provision that will allow a revalidation to occur to a class of persons is for a prescribed class of visa. While those regulations that prescribe the class of visa may be disallowed, the notices themselves issued by the minister cannot be disallowed. This means that there is absolutely no legislative oversight for this delegated responsibility to the executive and to the minister.

Of course, we have raised this issue with the minister. We have said, 'There are minor changes we need here. We need to make sure that if you're going to have this power, that it is something the parliament has some oversight over.' These are simple changes to be made and they would in no way, if made, come as any detriment to the regime that the government is proposing in the concept of revalidation—which is a sensible idea for a visa that will exist for 10 years.

But instead of making these sensible changes, which will not restrict government's capacity to make sure it can revalidate visas, the government is being stubborn. The government is being particularly stubborn, because there are some significant problems here. The problems have been well set out by many people and organisations in their submissions to the Senate committee that considered this legislation—in particular, the Law Council of Australia.

What is interesting is that the committee acknowledged these concerns were raised in the submissions that were made to it. Fundamentally, we have a dragnet power over classes of people which could be applied based on nationality, based on the passport they hold, based on their place of birth or based on their religion, with no capacity for a disallowance by the parliament. The power is too broad, it is inappropriate and it fundamentally lacks any oversight by the legislature.

In addition, the constraining elements in the legislation, as drafted—the concept of the public interest and the concept of adverse information—are too broad, not defined and will virtually allow any action by the minister in respect of a visa that is being revalidated. Specifically, the Law Council of Australia noted:

And they could apply much more broadly than the way in which they are described in the explanatory memorandum and how the government has said that it wishes to use them.

When we legislate in this place for the Commonwealth of Australia we cannot just take for granted what a government says is the limited purpose of how it wishes to use a broad power. The parliament must always consider how the breadth of power that it is providing to the executive may or can be used. It needs to have consideration of the full breadth of the power that it is providing to the executive—especially when it is providing that power in a completely unfettered way, which is what is being proposed here by the government. The Law Council goes on to say:

or the House—

potentially impacting upon all persons residing in Australia as temporary or permanent residents; …

if the minister so decided to apply these to those types of visas. The last point, that I think the Law Council makes well, is that there are already existing powers in the Migration Act that allow it to do many of the things that the government has stated the purpose of these provisions is for. As I said, Labor has said that it will be very happy to work with the government to find a way to ameliorate the larger issues that they have with this legislation, but they refuse to do that.

The question is: given these issues are easy to fix, why not fix them? This is a very important question, and the minister has to ask himself: how are provisions like this in keeping with Australian liberal democracy? Handing unfettered powers like this to the executive, to a minister, undermines the concept of the rule of law. It completely does away with the concept of why we have a parliament in the first place if we hand to a minister very broad powers that are in no way reviewable by the parliament itself.

Really, the question the minister has to ask himself is this: what sort of liberal party would do this? This is not even what real conservatives would do. This really does look more authoritarian than anything else. We have gone through centuries in the establishment and the working out of the concepts of parliamentary democracy and the rule of law, and one of the key aspects of that has always been the separation of the power of those who create the laws and those who put the laws in place.

Understandably, we delegate many capacities to legislate through legislative instruments to executives on a regular basis in a limited and constrained way. But this is not that. This is handing an unfettered power that will not even be subject to disallowance by the parliament to a minister, to do something to a broad class of persons that is ill-defined—and is not only ill-defined but would in fact be, in most respects, almost completely unlimited, other than the requirement that it be limited to a class of visas to which this power applies. But then we find that the class of visas to which this applies is something that is set by the minister in delegated legislation.

This is not about the proper administration of our borders. This is not about national security. All of those issues can be fixed, and Labor is happy to work with the government to make sure that this legislation can work properly.

So, Minister Dutton, the question for you is: what sort of minister do you want to be known as? Labor always supports good legislation. Ten-year visas? That is agreed. SmartGates? That is agreed. Unfettered class revalidation? No deal. Fix the bill.

Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to stand to speak on the Migration Amendment (Visa Revalidation and Other Measures) Bill 2016. Anybody who listened to the minister's second reading speech or read the explanatory memorandum on this bill would think we were talking about a bill which was actually quite noncontroversial. In fact, the Labor opposition supports the measures which were described in the second reading speech and which are outlined in the explanatory memorandum. Some of them were covered in Labor's policy before the election, and essentially we would support them as quite reasonable measures—if you took the minister's second reading speech at face value. And I am going to cover the things that he did cover at face value first, just to put in context the rest of this bill, which is actually quite good—in fact, quite important.

The bill introduces revalidation checks, according to the minister, because we have introduced ten-year visitor visas for China, with India coming on at the end of 2017. The ten-year visitor visas for China are incredibly important for tourism. It also talks about rapid approval of visas for Chinese tourists. This is all incredibly important and, as outlined in the second reading speech, well worth supporting for our tourism industry.

The bill also covers what we call SmartGates. That is about using technology to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of screening at airports. It involves improving technology, biometric capability, reducing manual processing, facial recognition and various biometric data collection. Again, this is a really important use of technology to improve our efficiency at airports.

If it were just those things, we would be having quite a different discussion now. But, unfortunately, there is a ticking time bomb in this legislation, and it is one that the minister chose not to raise and it is one not covered in the explanatory memorandum. It relates to the revalidation of visas. While the second reading speech talked about the Chinese 10-year tourist visas, the reality of this bill is that it allows the minister, without needing to bring it to this parliament and without any ability for this parliament to disallow it, to essentially require the revalidation of any class of visa. It is incredible overreach.

Whether this is sloppy drafting or intentional we are going to have to speculate. But the change in this bill does not only relate to 10-year Chinese tourist visas. It relates to any class of visa or any class of person. It allows the minister to decide that any group of people or any class of visa—permanent residence; marriage visas; spouse visas; you name it—or a group of people, based on race, a country they have passed through, an age or anything, actually require revalidation under this bill.

If this were sloppy drafting, you would expect that the minister and the government would have responded to the concerns of third-party stakeholders. There were many criticisms of this bill in the various stages of its process, and the minister has ignored those. The Labor opposition approached the minister in November last year asking for some changes, and he did not respond until Monday. So if this was sloppy drafting, this is not the way you deal with it. Given that it was not mentioned in the second reading speech, that it was not mentioned in the explanatory memorandum, that there has been a public presentation of a bill which is quite narrow in its focus, and that, when the extent and breadth of it is exposed, they simply proceed as if it was their intention all along, one could be excused for believing that this was actually an intentional opening up of a minister's powers to an extraordinary level—a level which we have never seen in Australia.

Australia is a country with a non-discriminatory immigration program. We are proud of it. We have a multicultural community. It is unimaginable that our community would accept unfettered power by a minister—any minister, for that matter—to decide, on a whim, that he would require an entire class of people or visas to be revalidated. It is even worse when you consider that that minister is Minister Dutton.

Regardless of which minister it is, no minister should want this power. This is a power that exceeds the usual powers of a minister and the powers that a minister should require. This is not something that we do in Australia. But you are talking about Minister Dutton, who has stood in this place and in others and lumped whole groups of people together as bad Australians, as a mistake that Australia made in letting this group or that group into the country—as a mistake we made, literally, in letting people into this country. Some of the people who are most offended by those statements live in my electorate. I know them, and I assure you it was not a mistake. They are fine people. Here we have a minister who will make those kinds of statements now seeking for himself the power to act on the basis of those statements—the power to require entire groups of people or classes of visas to be revalidated—without the possibility for those changes to be disallowable in the Senate. As I said, there are no limits to the minister's power under these amendments in this bill.

We should all be concerned with the security of Australians. If the minister wishes to expand his powers, he should do so openly and with real consultation. That has not happened here. We on this side of the House are asking that those measures be removed and that we have a real debate and discussion about them, rather than what appears to have happened, which was to try and slide these extreme changes through under the guise of a different meaning altogether.

I state again—because there may be people out there who are not familiar with the way that parliament works—that second reading speeches and memorandums of understanding are actually part of the legal document. They are part of the interpretation that courts make, for example, when they look at a bill. They are written by the departments, rather than ministerial staff, and they form part of the way that the country understands the interpretation of a bill. For a minister to stand in this House and pretend that this bill is simply about 10-year Chinese visitors visas is quite extraordinary. If it were just sloppy drafting, we would have expected it to be changed by now. If it were sloppy drafting, you would expect the minister, the government and the department to have been running around for the last few months trying to fix it, and yet we have not. We have seen them stand by their guns and continue to pursue a line of giving the minister powers that no reasonable parliament would give.

I think it is pretty clear, from the speakers that have spoken on our side, how we feel about this and what we expect the government to do on this. We expect them to be up-front with the Australian people. If they do want to dramatically expand the minister's powers, they should say so openly and have the debate and not go about trying to hide it in this way. But they do what they do. This is the kind of behaviour we have come to expect from Minister Dutton. This is an extension of it, and we should, as a nation, resist the giving of extraordinary powers of this kind to any minister at all. I totally reject this increase in powers.

As I said, it is a shame, because the rest of the bill is actually quite good. From my Chinese community and my Indian community that would be open to the 10-year visas at the end of 2017, I know that that part of this bill is actually really good. It is good for my community. I hope this government can find a way to ensure that this parliament is treated in a way that allows us to support that section of the bill without the expansion of the minister's powers in this way.

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to rise to speak today on the Migration Amendment (Visa Revalidation and Other Measures) Bill 2016. I would like to respond to comments made by the member for Griffith during this debate. The member for Griffith, at the start of her speech, referred to a Trump-style Muslim ban and then, throughout her contribution to this debate, criticised that the minister here in Australia could have similar Trump-style powers. Now, this is a very important point. I would like to completely rebut what the member for Griffith said and show it as completely false.

Firstly, the change that the US have made to their visa policy is not a ban; it is a 90-day suspension. It is not a Muslim ban; it applies to seven countries only. Those country are Iraq, Iran, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan and Libya. By any stretch of the imagination, those countries are anything but democracies. They are countries that have significant issues with security in their nations and significant issues with terrorism being inflicted upon their own people in those countries. It only applies to those seven countries. The Islamic world is estimated at around about 1.6 billion people around the world. If you look at all the countries that are not affected by this ban—countries such as Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Turkey, Egypt, Algeria, Morocco and Saudi Arabia, and I could go on and on—88 per cent of people of Islamic faith are not affected by the temporary suspension that was made to the US visa policy. Now, I am not here to defend that policy or say whether it is right or wrong. What I am here to do is point out that to call it a Muslim ban, as the member for Griffith did at the dispatch box, is misleading and false. It is not fit that an Australian member of parliament come into this chamber and make such misleading statements. Another reason the claim that it is a Muslim ban is false is that people in Iraq, whether they are Christians, Mandaeans or whatever religion they are, may be affected by the temporary suspension but someone of the Islamic faith from Indonesia, Egypt, Pakistan or Nigeria will not be affected. When a person of the Mandaean faith can be affected by the ban while a person of the Islamic faith cannot be affected, how can it possibly be called a Muslim ban?

This is very dangerous. This description, claiming that this is something that could be done here in Australia, causes division and hatred and is based on a falsehood. I say: shame on the member for Griffith. I invite her to come back into this chamber, correct the record, apologise to this House and apologise to the nation. We have a difficult enough situation in the world at the moment with terrorism. We do not need members of the Australian parliament making false statements in this House that only cause more division and more tension.

The legislation grants someone from China a 10-year visa to come to Australia, and this is something that we should all welcome very much. We have seen the growth of China in our lifetimes. Hundreds of millions of people have been lifted out of poverty into the middle class, with the ability to travel. We should never forget how that rise out of poverty occurred. It occurred not through aid or special measures; it occurred simply because the Chinese government, after years of going down the communist track of collectivisation of industry and allowing government to control everything, saw the light and realised it would be best for their economy to open it up to market forces and allow people to own property. We have seen in our lifetimes the greatest uplift of people out of poverty probably in human history. That is a great bonus for our country. There are hundreds of millions of people in China now who represent a market that we can attract to become tourists to Australia, to create more jobs and more wealth in this country. So anything we can do to make it easier for those people to get a visa—to make it easier for them to get a longer, 10-year visa—is something we all should be in favour of. We would hope that, when those tourists come to Australia, if they have a 10-year visa, they do not come just once; we want them to come multiple times, time after time.

We have so many wonderful tourist attractions for people to see in this country. As an example of some of the wonderful tourist attractions that we have in this country, over the recent Christmas break I had the opportunity to take my small kayak out onto Port Hacking.

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Ah!

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, I see the minister at the table. I actually defeated him once in a kayak race, if I remember correctly—but I digress. Port Hacking is in Sydney's southern waterways. The water there was absolutely pristine. You could see the sandy bottom two to three metres down and you could see the fish. This is all within a short distance of Sydney's CBD. This is a tourist attraction that I have in my electorate for people from China. We also have Garie Beach, a most magnificent place within the Royal National Park. Every weekend, so many Chinese tourists come to experience Garie Beach and visit the Figure 8 rock pools further south.

It is also important, in this bill, not only that we have the 10-year visa period but that the minister has the ability to make some of the changes that are needed. If a visa needs to be cancelled or a revalidation required, in this day and age the minister, surely, must have this discretion. For members of the Labor Party to go on about how terrible this is and to falsely link it to what the member for Griffith described as a Muslim ban is a disgrace to this parliament. We need to do everything we can to stop the false division that we see. Unfortunately, the member for Griffith failed in that task today.

The other thing that we hope to see in years to come is for this 10-year visa to be extended to many other countries. I would like to see in years to come this extended to many other countries that we deal with, because tourism is such an important sector of the economy. If we look at where our strengths will be in this economy in years to come, where will we be in 10 or 15 years time if we do not fix our corporate tax rate? Where will we be in 10 or 15 years time if our electricity costs are two and three times those of our major competitors? What industries will we have that will drive the prosperity of this nation in years to come? If you look at our industries, clearly our tourism industry is one of the most important that we have because it creates more opportunities for hotel construction, which creates jobs for all the tradesmen—the builders, carpenters, electricians, plumbers and landscapers—constructing tourism, not to mention our food suppliers. Every time a Chinese tourist or other overseas tourist comes to this country, they need to be fed. We have some of the best produce and some of the best wines that they can sample when they come here. This all increases the demand for the supply of goods from Australia and, therefore, increases employment opportunities and wealth creation opportunities for this country.

I hope that at the conclusion of this debate, or sometime during the day, the member for Griffith reconsiders her words and that she considers the potential division she created by her false labelling of the changes in the US visa system. I hope she comes back in here and says that she may have misspoken and corrects the record, because we cannot allow this to happen in the Australian parliament. It is one thing for some journalistic rags to make these false statements; it is completely another thing for elected members of the Australian House of Representatives to come into this parliament and say such things. I hope the member for Griffith reconsiders her approach to this and takes the opportunity that this parliament provides to come back into this parliament and correct the record. With that, I will conclude my speech by saying that I commend this bill to the House.

Peter Khalil (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the Migration Amendment (Visa Revalidation and Other Measures) Bill 2016 in its second reading and to the objectives of the bill. As many speakers have pointed out, the three main objectives contained in the bill are (1) to introduce a new revalidation check framework for visas, including a 10-year visitor visa; (2) to clarify when a visa ceases to be in effect under the Migration Act; and (3) to enable the use of contactless SmartGate technology during an immigration clearance.

In his second reading speech, the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection noted, quite explicitly, that this bill would support the introduction of a proposed 10-year validity visa. Of course, the implementation of this visa was induced by the outcomes of the Our North, Our Future: White Paper on Developing Northern Australia. The white paper highlighted the need for the Australian government to target the fastest-growing tourism markets, being China and India. It further noted that the electronic lodgement of visitor visa applications, a fast-track visa approval scheme and the trial of a 10-year validity visa would promote and boost tourism from those key regions. Clearly, the importance of tourism from these regions, especially in Asia, is something that is well understood and supported by Labor.

Indeed, it is Labor policy that we will restore tourism to the heart of Australia's economic narrative, recognising its importance as a super-growth sector for local jobs and the economy. That is why Labor announced, prior to the last election, that we would undertake an audit of Australia's tourist visa offerings for each of our main target markets and undertake an assessment of how those offerings compare to our major competitors. The tourist visa audit mandated by our election platform proposed to assess the competitiveness of our visa fees, visa processing arrangements and the ease of interaction with the Australian border.

With a specific view to the growing Chinese market, Labor proposed to (1) review the cost of the 10-year multiple entry visa so that it is competitive with that offered to Chinese citizens visiting the US and the EU; (2) introduce an online visa application in both English and Mandarin which can be submitted online at any time; and (3) reduce the processing time for visas submitted online to within 48 hours. These policy measures are aimed to help to arrest and reverse the decline in the share of the Chinese tourist market, which has been stagnant since 2004 as a proportion of the total Chinese market.

A report by Tourism Australia notes that, in 2015, visitors from China generated $8.3 billion in total expenditure. In response to the white paper recommendations, the first stage of the 10-year visa pilot for visitors from China commenced on 12 December 2016. I would note, for the record, the fact is that this pilot program has not occurred as part of a reciprocal arrangement with China.

The subsections under the proposed section 96 in this bill introduce a mechanism that would require visa holders to undergo revalidation at various points throughout the term of the visa in order to re-establish their visa. The explanatory memorandum notes that: a continuous updating of biographical, contact and passport information would be necessary in the context of extended grant periods. It also notes that this legislative framework enables the management of risks to the Australian public. However, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights has raised concerns that the powers contained in the bill are not proportionate to this objective. While the powers will purportedly only be used in the course of addressing objective assessments of risk, there is nothing that constrains the powers arrogated to the minister under schedule 1 of this bill.

In a number of submissions that were received by the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee, which many of the previous speakers have alluded to and quoted from, it has been recognised that these powers can be used at large against any person who holds a visa of a 'prescribed kind' entirely at the discretion of the minister. Of course, the stakeholders who have provided submissions include the Law Council of Australia, the Migration Council of Australia, the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, the University of New South Wales, and the ANU's College of Migration Law.

The real issue we have been discussing with concern is section 96E and its broad scope that would allow the minister discretion to seek revalidation of visas for a whole class of persons. As the member for Blair said earlier in this debate, Labor is concerned with the unintended consequences of schedule 1 of the bill.

The revalidation framework is an uncommon measure for a country to enshrine in legislation. No other nations who have introduced 10-year visas for Chinese nationals have used similar provisions as of the current time except one, and that is the United States. From November 2016, the United States Department of Homeland Security will require all holders of 10-year business or tourism visas to periodically update the information contained in their visa application. However, even under US jurisdiction, the United States policy is qualified within the stated purpose of the regime.

Natural justice comprises a common-law principle dictating that a decision-maker must provide the opportunity for a person whose rights, interests or legitimate expectations are affected by a decision to understand the basis for the decision and to be heard. The restraint that this bill proposes to place on certain basic rights of appeal gives rise to concerns that the amended Migration Act would severely limit natural justice being afforded to those people that it will impact.

Schedule 1 of the bill provides that, where the minister thinks it is in the public interest, the minister may issue a legislative instrument requiring a specified class of person holding a visa of a prescribed kind to complete a revalidation check. However, I note, as other speakers in this debate have noted, 'public interest' is not defined under the act, and the bill does not seek to create any definition that a public interest test would need to abide by. In common terms, the powers provided within this bill go much further than the stated objective requirements. This bill would provide the minister with extremely broad discretion to potentially revalidate any type of visa for any type or class of person. This could, in theory, be used to revalidate visas for people of one nationality or from one geographic region, or to target people of one ethnic or religious group, albeit indirectly. The instrument is non-disallowable, meaning that the minister merely has to make a statement to parliament in order to undergo revalidation of certain classes of visa holders.

Labor has sought to work constructively with the government to amend this bill. As the member for Blair stated earlier, Labor reached out in good faith to the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection in November last year to request amendments to the bill. It is somewhat unbelievable that the request was ignored until just this week, when the member for Blair received a flat refusal to support parliamentary oversight of the minister's non-compellable power to determine specified classes of people to revalidate their visa.

In accordance with part 3 of the Human Rights (Parliamentary Scrutiny) Act 2011, the government has provided advice that it considers the bill, in its current form, is compatible with Australia's human rights obligations. However, it is important to note that, in its ninth report of 2016, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights raised the matter of the broad ministerial powers. The committee's report stated:

As the power to prescribe the type of visa is unlimited, it appears that it could enable the minister to prescribe any type of visa … This measure therefore has the potential to engage a number of human rights, including Australia's non-refoulement obligations, the right to an effective remedy, the right to liberty and the right to protection of the family.

The Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, who is here in the House, knows that I am on the record with many criticisms of some of the rhetoric that has been espoused by him in his portfolio responsibilities, and I have made the argument—it is part of our democratic debate—that I believe that he has been irresponsible and somewhat divisive in his conflation of immigration policy and national security. I also note and have said publicly that I think that there has been a protracted campaign of dog-whistle type politics undertaken in the media.

So, clearly, I am a critic of the minister and his attitude towards multiculturalism and the way that it influences immigration policy. But this debate is not where I think we should be discussing those types of criticisms, because, regardless of who is Minister for Immigration and Border Protection—whether it is Minister Dutton or another minister on either side of politics—the principle of using the discretionary powers given to the minister in this bill should be proportionate and commensurate with the stated policy objectives. This is a principle worth defending. In this case, we believe, that those powers are not proportionate and not commensurate with the stated policy objectives.

It is important for us as members of parliament to sustain and protect the checks and balances in our democratic system, the separation of powers and, specifically, the checks on executive power, which are critically important. And, in this instance, as I have said, we do not believe that these broad discretionary powers are proportionate to the more narrow objective of revalidating long-term tourism or business visas. In its current scope, it would permit the closure of a whole class of persons across many different visa classes, and this executive decision could be based on race, religion or country of origin. We believe that this is unnecessary executive overreach.

An important point to make here is that we all know that the minister already has a range of instruments under the Migration Act that allow the minister to cancel visas if there is any bona fide concern for the public interest or national security. In particular, section 501 already allows the minister to cancel a visa on character grounds; section 109 allows the minister to cancel a visa if the holder has provided incorrect information on their application or on their passenger card; section 116 allows the minister broad circumstances to cancel a visa where the minister is satisfied the decision to grant the visa was based on a fact or circumstance which no longer exists; section 134B allows the minister to undertake an emergency cancellation of a visa on security grounds through an ASIO assessment; section 140 provides that, if a visa is cancelled under certain sections, a visa held by that person's family member or members may also be cancelled.

There is a stark contrast between Labor, we on this side of the House, and the coalition government that could not be more evident. I commend and concur with the comments our leader, Bill Shorten, made only last week, when he said:

Australia has had a non-discriminatory immigration policy for more than four decades. It's made us stronger. We don't just tolerate diversity, we embrace it. We are the home of the fair go for all. All races, all faiths, all cultures.

And I wholeheartedly concur with the member for Blair when he said in this place that Labor will speak out against legislation that seeks to target people from certain regions, because Labor has never and will never agree to discriminate against people on the basis of their race, religion or country of origin—which this bill gives the potential for a current minister or a future minister to do.

Notwithstanding the aforementioned issues with the powers proposed by schedule 1 of the bill, I do emphasise that all of the other measures contained in this bill are consistent with Labor policy. Indeed, they are very much Labor policy, as I have outlined. We support the implementation of contactless automated technology for immigration clearance—referred to as SmartGates. This technology is estimated to achieve substantial savings to the Commonwealth, by reducing manual processing and creating a fast, seamless self-processing experience for up to 90 per cent of people entering Australia. The savings to be found in reducing compliance costs are estimated to be almost $33 million per annum.

As previously referenced, Labor also recognises the significant importance of promoting tourism from certain key global regions. I am proud of Labor's record in government of investing in the infrastructure and legislative framework to deliver long-term growth in tourism. We have always ensured that tourism receives representation at the highest levels of government, sending a message around the cabinet table and around the world that tourism matters. We of course support returning tourism to the centre of government. Amongst our comprehensive suite of tourism policies, we have clearly pledged support for a 10-year multiple entry visa in order to remain competitive in the global tourism market and we support SmartGates to facilitate a better, faster and cheaper experience for people arriving at our border. So I do not want our isolated criticisms of part of this bill to reflect on those far more sensible elements of the bill before the House which we support.

But, while the bill does seek to make some sensible changes to the Migration Act, we must ask what has driven this government overreach beyond the basic objectives of the bill and to provide powers which have raised these concerns—concerns that were articulated by the Law Council of Australia in their submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs, where they said:

The Law Council queries whether the Bill is necessary, justified and proportionate to achieving a legitimate purpose.

After full consideration of all the current circumstances, I stand with my Labor colleagues on this side of the House to oppose the bill in its current form. And I echo the member for Blair's call to the government to work with Labor in a sensible, bipartisan fashion to create a visa revalidation framework that is fair.

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to say thank you to all of those members who have contributed to this debate. I was here for the contribution by the member for Hughes, who made a fine contribution. I thank him very much for his strong stance on these important matters.

The amendments of schedule 1 of the Migration Amendment (Visa Revalidation and Other Measures) Bill 2016 will help Australia's international tourism sector by establishing a visa revalidation framework within the Migration Act. This framework will underpin the introduction of a long-term visitor visa for Australia, which will have a validity period of 10 years and will allow for entry and stay for up to three months. This new long-term visa will reduce red tape and streamline repeat visits to Australia by genuine tourists and businesspeople.

The framework supports this long-term visa by providing a mechanism which will enable a longer validity visa to be periodically assessed to ensure they continue to meet the requirements for holding their visa. This includes existing health, character, security and other requirements for entry to Australia. Allowing for the periodic review of these requirements is necessary to ensure that both the integrity of the visitor visa framework and public confidence in the visitor visa program are maintained.

I need to correct some misinformation being peddled by those opposite—that the visa revalidation framework will apply to everyone. This is simply incorrect. Visa revalidation will only apply to those visa classes prescribed in the regulations, which are disallowable by this parliament. The government has been very clear that the only visa being prescribed will be the subclass 600 visa, which will enable a 10-year visitor visa trial for Chinese nationals.

Additionally, the bill introduces a ministerial power to manage specific, serious or time-critical risks in relation to an identified cohort of visa holders. This power will enable the conduct of public interest revalidation checks for prescribed visa holders. This provision will ensure potential risks to the Australian public are able to be effectively managed and effectively mitigated.

It is intended that this power be exercised only in exceptional circumstances necessitating an immediate response where it would be in the public interest to do so. For example, the power would be available in situations where there has been an assessment of increased risk to the Australian community due to a significant health or national security incident overseas. Without this power, the government would have limited scope to manage risks associated with the travel to Australia of large cohorts of travellers who have a valid long-term visa in effect.

Noting that the foreseeable circumstances in which a public interest revalidation would be required are of a time-critical nature, it is appropriate that a legislative instrument related to this power not be disallowable. To make the public interest revalidation a disallowable instrument would introduce uncertainty and weaken the effectiveness of the measure in managing the potential risk to our country. The government has ensured that sufficient parliamentary oversight of public interest revalidation exists through a legislative provision which requires the minister to table a statement in a house of parliament explaining the minister's reasons for making the determination. It is important to note that the government has drafted these provisions consistently with other public interest provisions already contained within the Migration Act, which are also non-disallowable.

The regrettable part is that this is a complete overreaction and an obvious failed political stunt by Labor. In November last year, Labor senators sat on an inquiry into this bill that recommended that the bill be passed. Labor had only ever raised one small technical issue with the bill—that is, whether or not clause 96E was disallowable, a request which the government opposed as it would weaken the effectiveness of the provision.

All of a sudden, yesterday, the shadow minister raised wide-ranging issues and has claimed on that basis that they are unable to support the entire visa revalidation framework. This is in direct contrast to a conversation that he and I had on Sunday night where he expressed in no uncertain terms that he had no problem at all with this bill except for a major issue which they would seek an amendment in relation to. That is the exact conversation that I had with this dishonourable person opposite on Sunday night. I only raise it because he has in his conduct in the last 24 hours gone completely against his advice to me on Sunday night. There were other witnesses to this exact conversation. Without directly quoting him, he said to me, 'Look, mate, we have no problems with the bill, but there is one section that we would like to have a look at as to whether or not you can disallow it.' I said, 'Look, I've been distracted by other issues. I will have a look at it. I will come back to you,' which we did. His office contacted mine to confirm the conversation and ask for advice in relation to it. I said that we would not allow this amendment by Labor at that stage, for whatever reason.

This member opposite has never asked a question of me in this parliament. It will be interesting to see whether he asks a question today, because this is his biggest issue and he has tried to make an issue of it. The problem is that he has got it wrong. The problem is that he has misled the Australian public in feigning his position in relation to this bill. It is a disgrace and it should be called out. It shows that the shadow minister opposite is not worthy of the office that he holds.

In schedule 2, a further amendment in this bill will ensure that if a person holds a visa that is not in effect and a ceasing event applies to the visa, such as the cancellation of the visa, the visa period for that visa will in most circumstances end and the person will no longer hold the visa. This will provide certainty as to when a person is no longer the holder of a visa and supports the amendments establishing the visa revalidation framework.

Additionally, schedule 3 in this bill enables the use of leading edge contactless technology in automated immigration clearance. A traveller will be able to self-process through SmartGates without having to present their passport. The live facial image of the traveller at the SmartGate will be compared with a verified image from departmental holdings to confirm the traveller's identity. This will reduce the time it will take for a traveller to self-process through a SmartGate. In addition to faster processing, this measure delivers stronger security at our border. Implementing this technology also expands the self-processing option to a greater number of travellers.

In summary, this bill deserves support by all members in this chamber, and on that basis I move that this bill be now read a third time.

Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that this bill be now read a second time. I put the question:

That this bill be now read a second time.

All those in favour, say aye. Against, say no. The ayes have it.

Opposition members: The noes have it.

I remind members that they cannot speak when they are not in their own seats.

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that this bill be now read a second time.