Melissa Parke (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Attorney-General, I am aware of many cases in my electorate of Fremantle where the temporary protection visa scheme, introduced by the Howard government in 1999, placed genuine refugees in a long-term holding pattern, unable to properly settle in Australia. Refugees are people who have had to flee their homes in situations of persecution and trauma. It is cruel in the extreme to make these genuine refugees then suffer the uncertainty and indignity of not knowing their future, of having their status re-examined every three years, of not being able to access initial accommodation bond assistance to rent a house or to access social security payments, of not being eligible for English language training or for assistance to find a job, and being prohibited from travelling outside of Australia or for family reunion in Australia. This has meant the separation of families for indefinite periods of time.

Australia is party to the 1951 UN refugee convention, which provides, in article 34, that Australia should facilitate the assimilation and naturalisation of refugees. Many human rights organisations—including the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, Amnesty International, the Refugee Council of Australia, and Human Rights Watch—have expressed concern that the temporary protection visa scheme is contrary to Australia’s obligations under the 1951 refugee convention. A 2002 report by Human Rights Watch on Australia’s asylum policy entitled By invitation only notes that visas, such as the temporary protection visa, should be reserved for use in mass influx situations where they are given to asylum seekers prior to any determination of refugee status.

I know from my own experience in Kosovo that Kosovo Albanians, during their mass exodus to neighbouring countries in 1999, were given temporary protection visas. This was precisely the situation temporary protection visas were intended to deal with. The Howard government’s use of temporary protection visas in Australia after refugee status had been confirmed was a grotesque distortion of the purpose and intent of the temporary protection visa system, and it is only right and just that it be abolished. Attorney-General, can you please provide some further information on the government’s decision to abolish the temporary protection visa?

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