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

This is an important piece of legislation, speaking as it does to the importance of integrity in the immigration system. We have widespread support for immigration in my electorate of Banks and indeed in the nation more generally. A big part of the reason for that support is the public perception of integrity within the system, and measures that are designed to ensure integrity within the system are measures that this House should always seek to support.

We do have a history in recent years of a loss of control over the immigration system—particularly as it pertained to border security under the previous government. One of the important achievements of the coalition government has been to resolve that very significant problem, because under the previous government we did see, on both a humanitarian and an economic level, a very serious situation arise with that $11 billion cost blow-out, the 50,000 arrivals and, tragically, more than 1,000 deaths at sea. So taking action to preserve integrity in the immigration system, as we have done on the borders and as we are doing with the legislation that we are discussing today, is particularly important.

My community is fortunate to draw upon a very substantial number of people who were born overseas but have made Australia their home. The community of Banks is one which is supportive of immigration but it is also a community which has played by the rules, so to speak, in obtaining Australian citizenship. It wants to ensure that others do so too, and it wants to ensure that people who are seeking to come to Australia are not exploited by unscrupulous individuals—be they people smugglers or, indeed, employers or others who would seek to exploit them.

My community has the largest number of Australians of Chinese background of any electorate in Australia. Indeed more than 22,000 people in the electorate of Banks were born in either China or Hong Kong. The incredibly rich and vibrant Chinese community in Hurstville and surrounds is one of the things that makes Banks such a special place. While I reflect on the importance of the Chinese community, I would note that the community is indeed very supportive of immigration but also certainly wants to make sure that it is done in the right way.

I would also like to acknowledge Chinese Australian Social Services, CASS, who are very active in providing a range of services in my electorate. They have provided settlement services in times gone by and indeed today as well as many other services to the local Chinese Australian community. To Henry Pan, Tony Pang, Maria Cheng and Benze Leung: thank you so much for everything that you do for the Chinese community not only in the area of settlement services but also more generally.

We are also fortunate in Banks to have a very strong community of Indian background. One of the organisations that works with immigrants from India in my electorate is RAIN, the Resourceful Australian Indian Network. Sudha Natarajan and all of the people involved in RAIN do a terrific job in welcoming people to our nation, particularly older people in the Indian Australian community who are looking for a support network and an environment in which to learn more about the local community and to interact with others. RAIN is an absolute pillar of our community. Earlier this year I held a fundraiser with all funds going to the Red Cross appeal after the tragic Nepalese earthquake. RAIN was very instrumental in supporting that event, as were many other members of the community, and made a very generous donation.

Another community in my electorate of great significance is the Egyptian community. There are about 1,500 people in Banks who were born in Egypt, many of whom have arrived in relatively recent times. I thank Bishop Daniel of St Mark's Church in Arncliffe and John Nour, who is a senior member of St Mark's community, and Father Soliman and Father Malek of St Mary and St Joseph Church in Peakhurst—all of whom are very supportive of the local Egyptian community and help people to both maintain their existing culture and also fully participate in our local community. There is very widespread support for immigration in my community.

Our immigration program boils down broadly to two important elements. One element is that immigration is in our economic self-interest in terms of skilled migration and so on and the other very important element of our immigration program is the humanitarian element. The humanitarian element of our immigration program has been very strongly supported by this government. One of the less remarked upon but important achievements of this government is the reopening of the special humanitarian visa category a year or so ago. That category had pretty much come to a grinding halt under the previous government, because of the influx of arrivals by boat. We have managed to get the special humanitarian visa program back up to about 5,000 people per year—from as low as 500, which was what it was under the previous government. That is a very important achievement, and it has only been achieved because of the integrity measures which enabled those places to become available.

Indeed, in that broad area of the humanitarian program, we have recently announced the intention to enable 12,000 refugees from Syria and Iraq to join us here in Australia. That is something that as a government and as a nation that we can all be very proud of. A number of community groups and church groups in my electorate have already reached out to seek to welcome those individuals as they arrive.

But this all has to be wrapped up in a system that has integrity and fundamental fairness. One of the problems at the moment is that it is not actually unlawful to charge someone to assist them for a particular visa outcome. So it is possible for an unscrupulous employer or individual to say, 'We will sponsor you for this particular visa category but, if you get the visa, we want $20,000' or whatever it is. That is wrong, because people or entities who would support those seeking visas should do so on the basis of a genuine and legitimate relationship with that individual, not some spurious economic relationship. It undermines the integrity of the program to enable this to occur.

We need to reflect on the fact that people who are applying for visas in these situations are often people who are in quite a vulnerable situation. Frankly, the outcome of getting a visa to enable someone to live in Australia is so dramatically preferable in many cases to the outcome of not getting a visa to be able to live in Australia, it is understandable that some of those applicants could be persuaded to pay someone to facilitate that process in a way which is unscrupulous. We do not want that to happen. We do not want a lack of integrity in the system. So, particularly with these visa classes in the broad so-called 457 category, applying to the skilled temporary work visas and other similar related categories, we want that practice to stop. We want to send a very clear message that this is not a minor matter; this is actually a very serious matter. To seek to exploit the goodwill and good intentions of somebody who is applying for a visa in Australia is something that we should not accept and should not countenance. As a consequence of that, the provisions in the act we are discussing today in relation to penalties are quite strong: up to two years imprisonment for somebody who seeks to obtain a payment for their role in helping someone to obtain sponsorship for a visa; and also potentially quite substantial fines of some tens of thousands of dollars.

The bill introduces an important discretionary power to enable the revocation or cancellation of the visa itself. So in an event where the applicant has knowingly made use of some sort of unlawful service—paying someone to provide sponsorship—there is the capacity for the discretionary cancellation of that visa and that is entirely appropriate.

It is very important that we maintain integrity in the system at all times. When we reflect on the 457 visa system, which this bill of course touches on, that system has been in place for some years and it has been supported by both sides of the House, but it needs to be a system that has integrity. There are a number of elements to it: firstly, it has to be genuine in the sense that the skills being supplied are skills that cannot be located in the local market; and secondly, it has to be an application which is made in good faith with the sponsors—the people who are signing off on the application—not doing so because of some ulterior economic motive but because it is the right thing to do. That is why it is so important.

I strongly commend this bill to the House. These are important provisions. We must never forget the importance of integrity in the immigration system, and this is an important integrity measure.

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