David Coleman (Banks, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to rise to speak today in support of the Migration Act, regaining control over Migration Amendment (Regaining Control Over Australia’s Protection Obligations) Bill 2013. This bill is another part of the government's effort to undo Labor's myriad mistakes in the area of border protection. It is a sorry history of error after error, and this legislation in one important respect contributes to the correction of those errors.

The bill deals with the process by which applications for complementary protection are considered by the government. Complementary protection visas are typically granted in circumstances where an applicant has been found not to meet the criteria of the UN refugee convention but is nonetheless unable to be returned to their home country due to the harm they would suffer should they be returned. The obligation not to return applicants who would suffer certain types of harm if returned to their home country is known as nonrefoulement. The debate that this bill encapsulates is about the process by which Australia should consider applications for complementary protection. The measures in this bill are in very clear contrast to the process which has been in place since March 2012.

It is instructive to think back to the system which existed prior to March 2012. Under it, the minister of the day considered all genuine applications under Australia's international non-refoulement obligations. In a situation where somebody applied under the convention but was not successful because they did not comply with its conditions, the minister would, as appropriate, consider whether or not to provide a visa to the applicant under complementary protection provisions. This system allowed the minister to take into account a wide range of circumstances, including—as the member for Mitchell mentioned earlier—the broad background of the person who was applying for the visa. The minister's decisions were not subject to legal review.

So, prior to March 2012, we had a very orderly and sensible process by which the minister of the day would take into account relevant matters and determine whether or not an application should be successful under the non-refoulement provisions. If an application was successful, the minister would issue the appropriate visa and the applicant would not be required to return to their homeland. As was discussed earlier in the debate, the typical situation in which such visas are granted is that in which the applicant, whilst not complying with the provisions of the UN refugee convention, would nonetheless be subjected to substantial harm if they were returned home. Australia certainly has a clear obligation to provide relief in such circumstances.

The ministerial intervention model was successful because it gave the minister the capacity to deal in a flexible and constructive manner with myriad different cases. I am sure you can imagine that an infinite number of different scenarios might present themselves to the minister. The minister of the day—whether from a coalition or a Labor government, as was the case in March 2012—would take into account the relevant matters and make an appropriate decision. (Quorum formed)

The previous system—that of ministerial intervention in the complementary protection visa system—worked very well. But it is important to contrast this system with the system that was introduced by the Labor Party in March 2012. For the information of members who have just joined us I repeat that the previous system allowed ministerial intervention and a sensible approach to granting complementary protection visas, taking into account all relevant matters, and that this system had bipartisan support until March 2012.

In March 2012, Labor passed legislation in government to introduce a very rigid system. This system effectively required the department to consider each application against rigidly constructed criteria. You can imagine the administrative burden that created within the department. In addition to that, it subjected the applications for complementary protection to judicial review. So there was the previous system of ministerial intervention, intervening sensibly on a case-by-case basis when complementary protection visas were appropriate to the issue, in contrast to a very rigid bureaucratic system that creates, as the member for Mitchell so eloquently said, another product for people smugglers to sell. The people smugglers could represent: 'Whilst you might miss out on a visa under the formal provisions of the convention, we can also sell you a capacity to have a separate process under the complementary protection system.' So it is a very rigid system and certainly one that the government does not support.

It is also important to bear in mind that, despite the great formality of this system, it was only used successfully on 83 occasions since March 2012. So there is a huge administrative cost, another product for the people smugglers and a situation which in fact only related to 83 people over a substantial period of time. This bill seeks to broadly reinstitute the system that existed prior to March 2012 where the minister, under advice from the department and taking into account all the circumstances of the matter, can decide whether to issue complementary protection visas. The complementary protection visa system stays in place. There is no substantive change to the complementary protection concept or to Australia's international obligations; it is simply matter of reverting to the system that existed prior to March 2012 so as to make the system run much more efficiently.

In terms of the operation of the border protection and immigration system more generally, it is important to note we are a generous nation and we do have a substantial humanitarian program with 13,750 places available each year. That is one of the most generous systems on a per capita basis in the world. A strong border protection policy and an orderly immigration system are essential to safeguard the program. Unfortunately, the previous Labor government lost control of the immigration system. That led to a huge financial cost.

The budget blow-out under Labor in this broad area was some $11.6 billion. We throw these numbers around—we say 'billions', we say 'millions'—and sometimes the point can lose its resonance because those numbers are mentioned so frequently. I thought it would be interesting to work out what that actually means on a per household basis in Australia. According to the ABS, there are about 9.1 million households in Australia. That figure of $11.6 billion is a lot of money. If you apply the cost of the budget blow-out to the average household in Australia, $1,272 was the cost of Labor's budget blow-out in this area to every household in the nation. That is a very important point to reflect on. That is money, were it not used in this endeavour of incompetence by the previous government, that could have been used for other purposes. It could have been returned in tax relief and certainly could have been used for a much more constructive purpose than dismantling a system which was working very effectively.

In retrospect, the correct proposition for Labor to have put at the 2007 election would have been along these lines: 'What we can do on the one hand is persevere with the policies of the Howard government, which have been very successful in securing the borders and in supporting a very substantial humanitarian refugee program, or, on the other hand, we can dismantle a system which is working very effectively and create a whole new system, with lots of changes to programs that are working, at a cost of $11.6 billion.' Obviously the proposition was not put in those terms, but, had it been, it is very clear what the answer to that would have been.

It is also important to note that the cost is not only financial; there is also a human cost. Under the Howard government, about 5,000 people a year were allowed into Australia under special humanitarian visas for people who did not comply with the broad terms of the refugee convention, but nonetheless the government took the view that we wanted to provide protection to these people because of their circumstances. That number—about 5,000 people under the Howard government—dropped to just 500 in the most recent financial year. The basic reason is that there were fewer spaces available because of the influx of boats. So there was a very significant humanitarian cost for people who were seeking asylum in Australia and a very significant financial cost, as I have just discussed.

This bill, in reinstituting a sensible system for complementary protection, will contribute to the overall approach of the government in getting our borders back under control and having a sensible system of humanitarian immigration.

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