Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Migration Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2008 and the amendments put forward by the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, and I acknowledge the support from the opposition as outlined by the member for Sturt. This bill makes a range of amendments to various migration and citizenship acts to clarify and improve the effectiveness of the legislation.

I represent an electorate where one in three residents was born overseas—nothing like your electorate, Mr Deputy Speaker Scott, where I grew up. Instead, it is a completely different mix. The electorate of Moreton is an open, vibrant, multicultural community and, for the most part, we are tolerant and understanding of one another. However, not a day goes by in my electorate office that I am not contacted by somebody seeking help and support with an immigration matter for themselves or a family member. Immigration and the reality of having family members scattered throughout the world is something I am constantly reminded of in my job.

Setting aside the Indigenous population of Australia, obviously the other 97 per cent of Australians would have roots overseas. I myself am of Irish, Italian and French background, married to someone of English—although her family stress that it is Cornish—Germanic and Indian background. So, like most Australians, our roots are overseas. The decisions that members make relating to the legislation and policies that govern immigration should not be taken lightly, as these decisions, more than any other area of law, have the power to drastically impact on individuals and their families, especially the people in my electorate, because so many are from overseas.

The electorate of Moreton has a significant number of people who are Sudanese and from other places in Africa, including a lot of people from South Africa and Zimbabwe. It also has a large Indian population. There are many New Zealanders and people from the UK and Korea. But the most significant group in my electorate represents the Chinese diaspora—people who have come not only from China but also, significantly, from Taiwan, and also there are Papua New Guinean Chinese, Hong Kong Chinese and Malaysian Chinese.

I want to turn to that particular group, the Chinese diaspora, to tease out how important this idea of immigration and race is. Let us look at the history of Australia since Federation and the Australian view of China. When the Federation started, both sides of the House, or all three sides of the House, as it would have then been—there were three major parties—would have seen China as the land of the yellow peril. That was very much one of the motivating factors for Federation. That view evolved over the next 50 years into China becoming the land of the red menace. I guess now, 50 years on, we would see China as being the land of the golden opportunity. It has gone from yellow to red to gold—so much has changed in our understanding of China’s role in the world. This then reflects on Australians’ view of ourselves and what defines an Australian, and what immigration is about. Back when immigration decisions were first being made—some of the major decisions were made in 1908—basically what defined an Australian was that you were a British citizen; or, if you were not a British citizen, immigration law determined that you were not an Australian.

It is interesting that, 100 years on, in Sales v Minister for Immigration and Citizenship we are still making decisions about what constitutes an Australian, what defines an Australian and who decides what an Australian is. Race has been a significant factor in many elections in Australia—questions about who decides who stays here and what sort of person stays here. While doing some research related to the legislation before the House, I looked up John Christian Watson, the first Labor Prime Minister of Australia, and I was interested to read this in Wikipedia:

Watson maintained that his father was a British seaman called George Watson.

Being a British citizen was a prerequisite for being a parliamentarian. It goes on:

Records dispute this, however; they indicate that Watson’s father was a Chilean citizen of German descent, Johan Christian Tanck, and that Watson was born in Valparaiso, Chile. Records also show that his mother was a New Zealander … who had married Tanck in New Zealand.

So that was the very first Labor Prime Minister, and it is suggested in Wikipedia that he is the only Australian Prime Minister who was not either born in Britain or of Anglo-Celtic descent. I am not sure about the descent of Mr Rudd. I would suggest it is Anglo-Celtic but I have not discussed that with the Prime Minister. But Watson is the only Prime Minister in the 107-year history of our Federation who was not British or Anglo-Celtic. Interestingly, it is suggested that one of the other early MPs, King O’Malley, lied about his descent, but that is a story for another day. I think he has Tasmanian connections, Mr Deputy Speaker Adams, so I will leave that to someone with more knowledge of the history of Tasmania.

Race has obviously been a very powerful factor in Australian history and Australian politics. It was a factor in the 1996 election, when the Howard-Costello government was elected, unfortunately. It became a big factor in the Queensland state election soon after, when 11 One Nation MPs were elected. Race is certainly something that is significant in Australian history, and it was very significant in my election, because every now and then there are still troubles between races or religions or various groups. Thankfully we have an immigration minister who has a huge heart and a great mind and we have a Prime Minister who has always had that visionary view of Australia that we are a country that needs to keep fighting above its weight in leading the world as to how cultures, religions and races can live together harmoniously.

Unfortunately we can look at the policies of the previous government relating to the mandatory detention of illegal asylum seekers—and I acknowledge that there are Labor roots in those policies—to see how immigration laws can horribly disrupt people’s lives. That is why I welcome the reforms to Australia’s immigration detention system announced by the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Senator Chris Evans. Under the Rudd Labor government, detention in immigration detention centres will only be used as a last resort and for the shortest practicable time. The department will have to justify why a person should be detained. Once in detention, a detainee will have their case reviewed every three months to ensure that the further detention of the individual is justified.

Most importantly, children will not be detained in an immigration detention centre. Surely that is a great outcome for common sense. Irrespective of what laws a parent might have bent, it is ridiculous to think that young children should be put in detention centres. We should never have those situations again where we have young children thinking that the only way out is to sew up their lips. I say that particularly because my partner has worked in child protection for nearly 20 years, and when I hear of the abuse of children it is certainly something that motivates me a lot, especially with Child Protection Week coming up next week.

The bill before the House initially sought to reinstate effective time limits for applying to the courts for judicial review of migration decisions. However, subsequent amendments moved by the minister removed these changes as it is important that we nut out a comprehensive solution to ensure that time limits apply to all decisions reviewable by the courts, including decisions made offshore to refuse to grant a visa to an applicant who has applied for a visa outside the migration zone. This is the case for many of the African residents in my electorate. The overarching notion that will guide the minister will be that justice delayed is justice denied.

The minister has indicated that these time limits will be introduced in the parliament later. I think that most people will be pretty relaxed about that because we all want to ensure that we get the provisions right. The measures in schedule 2 of the bill are about strengthening Australia’s border controls. These amendments seek to provide for airline and shipping carriers to be liable for separate prosecution for each and every individual not reported prior to arriving in Australia. This is about bringing the shipping industry in line with the airline industry and ensuring that the government is aware of all people entering our country. It is obviously a very commonsense approach. The further amendments introduced by the minister provide greater clarity on this matter and ensure that the reporting obligations on aircraft and shipping carriers under migration and customs legislation apply in relation to each individual passenger and crew member and not the voyage or flight generally. They will also provide for operators to be liable to separate prosecution for each passenger or crew member not reported. We can have strong border controls without depriving people of their dignity and humanity.

This bill also seeks to bring Australia into line with our international obligations under the 1961 United Nations Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. It amends the Australian Citizenship Act to ensure that the good character requirement applies to applicants for citizenship by descent who do not fall within the definition of a stateless person. Further amendments proposed by the minister ensure that applicants for citizenship who are not a stateless person, such as war criminals, are subject to the good character requirement. This will allow the minister to refuse an application for citizenship by descent if satisfied that the applicant is not of good character because of crimes against humanity or war crimes.

The recent Federal Court decision in Sales v Minister for Immigration and Citizenship found that a transitional permanent visa cannot be cancelled on character grounds because it is a visa that is held rather than granted. As a result of that decision, some 23 people, including convicted murderer Mr Sales, were released from immigration detention. It is obviously important that we get the character grounds definitions right so that we know where and when to draw the line in terms of the sort of Australia we want to take forward into the future. The amendments in schedule 4 anticipated this difficulty and ensure that the character grounds cancellation provisions apply to all temporary and permanent transitional visas and provide validation of all past character ground cancellation decisions in relation to such visas. Obviously this is an important area of law. We are talking about the very heart of this country and what we are as a nation. The legislation before the House today goes some way to sorting out these concerns. I commend the bill to the House.

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