Laurie Ferguson (Reid, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Multicultural Affairs and Settlement Services) Share this | Hansard source

in reply—As indicated earlier in the debate, the Migration Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2008 is an omnibus bill that makes amendments across the Migration Act 1958, the Australian Citizenship Act 2007, the Australian Citizenship (Transitionals and Consequentials) Act 2007 and the Customs Act 1901. This will clarify and improve the effectiveness of the migration and citizenship legislation by addressing and rectifying a range of problems that have been identified in the legislation over the years. It will also ensure that the citizenship legislation is consistent with two United Nations conventions: the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness 1961 and the Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons 1954.

The amendments in this bill are important, necessary and, in the case of the Migration Act, long overdue. As was highlighted in my second reading speech, the bill has some urgency in relation to amendments in schedule 4. Some of the amendments in this schedule were included initially to address obiter comments in the May 2007 full Federal Court decision of Moore v Minister for Immigration and Citizenship (2007) FCA 626 and the full Federal Court decision in Sales v Minister for Immigration and Citizenship (2008) FCAFC 132 on 17 July 2008. They affirmed the obiter reasoning in Moore and further found that a transitional permanent visa cannot be cancelled on character grounds, because that visa is held rather than granted. The amendments in schedule 4 of the bill address the Moore decision, and now the Sales decision, to ensure that the character cancellation provisions in the Migration Act apply to all temporary and permanent transitional visas and they provide validation of all past character cancellation decisions in relation to such visas. This maintains the minister’s ability to protect the Australian community.

I now turn to matters raised in the debate and thank those who have contributed. I refer to comments by the member for Sturt. They were generally supportive of the legislation; however, it is very ironic that, on the morning after the night on which the opposition thanked the previous Prime Minister for his contribution to this country’s politics, the member for Sturt has come in here and, in a way, slighted the contribution of the previous Prime Minister. Prime Minister Howard, historically, showed himself to be a major critic and opponent of multiculturalism, but the member for Sturt has come in here today and referred to the department as DIMA; that department’s name was changed in January 2007. Changing the name of the department was a major accomplishment of the previous Prime Minister, but the member for Sturt has come in here today and, perhaps accidentally or perhaps deliberately, referred to a department by a name that has long gone.

I take note of the comments that were made by the member for Cowan in relation to the Patrick family. We are certainly happy to look at that case and try to resolve the problems referred to. That member made some additional comments, unfortunately, regarding the history of migration detention in this country. Clearly, the Australian electorate recognised the need for overdue significant changes regarding the long-festering issue of temporary protection visas—the fact that people were in limbo land, unclear about where they were going. That has been rectified and, as I said earlier, welcomed by a broad constituency well beyond the conventional refugee advocacy movement. We have the situation where offshore detention sites have been ended and what has been termed the ‘Pacific solution’ has been terminated.

It is perhaps unfortunate, given the crusade by a small number of members of the previous government against that government’s legislation and activities on detention, that we have this member today still harking back—in a sense, in the way they do regarding Australian workplace agreements—to a now rejected history of detention of individuals for long periods. I conclude by commending the bill to the House.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

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