Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Migration Amendment (Character Cancellation Consequential Provisions) Bill 2016. This bill makes a number of amendments which are consequential to the Migration Amendment (Character and General Visa Cancellation) Act 2014. Labor supported that act through this House and through the parliament. The 2014 act was designed to strengthen the existing character and general visa cancellation provisions within the Migration Act to ensure that noncitizens who commit crimes in Australia and pose a risk to the Australian community, or represent an integrity concern, are appropriately considered for visa refusal or cancellation. It also introduced a mandatory cancellation power for noncitizens who failed to pass an objective character test. That test is deemed to be met if a person has served a custodial sentence of a minimum of 12 months or has committed a serious crime such as child sex offences.

The purpose of the bill before us today is to make consequential amendments to those that I have just outlined so that character related provisions are dealt with consistently throughout the Migration Act. Specifically, this bill does that in three broad ways. The first is to amend the definition of the term 'character concern' to make it consistent with the definitions contained within the character test as amended by the 2014 act. In that way, it will ensure that existing information disclosure provisions are consistent across the Migration Act with regard to the character test. The second general area of consequential amendments relates to section 501BA of the Migration Act. In that respect, this bill deals with decisions made under that provision, which relates to the minister's power to override a decision of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal or a delegate and cancel a person's visa on character grounds. It is a particular type of decision that the minister makes in relation to the character test. The purpose of a series of amendments found in the current bill is to ensure that decisions of that kind, made under section 501BA, are treated in a consistent way with other decisions that the minister makes in respect of character test visa cancellations.

The final group of amendments relates to section 501CA of the Migration Act. This is another sort of decision that the minister makes in relation to character test visa cancellations—specifically, the minister's power to reinstate a person's visa that was cancelled under the mandatory cancellation provision. Again, the purpose of these consequential amendments is to ensure that a decision of that kind is treated in a consistent way across the Migration Act with those other decisions that the minister may make, in relation to cancelling or dealing with a person's visa in respect of character-test grounds.

Labor supports these amendments. They are technical in nature, but they are a faithful set of amendments which provide consistency, consequential to the bill, that Labor supported when it went through this parliament in 2014. Having said that, it is becoming clear that the government is utilising ministerial discretion to cancel visas on character grounds to a greater extent than was the case under the former Labor government. The cancellation of a person's visa on character grounds is, clearly, a sensitive issue. It has to be done on a case-by-case basis, because we are talking about a different story in respect of each individual. So, I think that, all that can be said from the point of view of Labor in respect of the use of ministerial discretion in this regard, is that we will maintain a close regard, in terms of how the minister is using his discretionary powers but, that, if, in fact, what we are seeing is a toughening up of the system in relation to this, that it is very important for that to be explained to the Australian people by the government. As always, transparency is the key to ensuring that the Australian people understand exactly how discretion is being used and how the laws that pass through this parliament are being used.

That said, as I stated earlier, Labor will be supporting this bill. We do so in the House, but I do note that the Senate is currently undertaking an inquiry into the bill and, so, obviously, our final position, in terms of how we handle this legislation in the Senate, is dependent upon the outcome of that inquiry. But until that outcome has occurred Labor stands supporting this bill in the House.

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