Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration, Integration and Citizenship) Share this | Hansard source

I am sure the minister knows full well that we can set whatever conditions we want for the granting of an Australian visa, whether those conditions go to behaviour overseas or behaviour in Australia. If we were not able to do that, we would not be able to recognise the marriage laws of other countries in providing spouse visas, because how could we look at a marriage which was legally registered in a different country? The way we are able to do that, clearly, is that we allow our visa conditions to take into account behaviour that has been conducted overseas. Evidence can always be far more difficult to gather, but I put to the minister again: is it not a perfect example that the minister described earlier of people being in a situation of debt bondage, whether that debt has been incurred overseas or in Australia? Isn’t the capacity for debt bondage exactly the same, and isn’t the only difficulty for the Australian government, if it has the will, the gathering of evidence? Surely, Australia has a complete right to determine whether or not it will issue a visa.

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