Dennis Jensen (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The coalition was elected by a huge mandate in September 2013 to deliver strong government to guarantee a safe, secure Australia. This bill, the Migration Amendment (Character Cancellation Consequential Provisions) Bill 2016, is about implementing that promise to the Australian people.

I welcome common-sense notions on the statute books and the codifying of our community values and expectations. This bill has never been more timely or more important. This bill will strengthen the government's ability to deal with unlawful, fraudulent or criminal behaviour by noncitizens. The character test has not changed significantly since 1999. Since then, the situation has changed dramatically, with streamlined processes and higher volumes of temporary visa holders for economic and other purposes. The proposed changes strengthen and widen the powers to refuse or cancel a visa on character grounds.

The government will be able to act if there is a risk, as opposed to a significant risk, that a person would engage in a wide range of criminal conduct, according to the explanatory memorandum accompanying the bill. Reasonable suspicion that a person is, or has been, associated with a group involved in criminal conduct will be sufficient to refuse a visa. Such conduct includes people smuggling, genocide, war crimes, a crime involving torture or slavery, or a crime that is otherwise of serious international concern, even if there is no actual conviction. A person found guilty, even if no conviction was recorded by an Australian or a foreign court, of a sexual offence involving a child will be out. The measure also allows the minister to require state and territory governments to disclose personal information that may have a bearing on character. The most important point that this government wants people to take away is that entry into, and staying in, Australia by noncitizens is a privilege, not a right. The Australian community expects that the Australian government can, and should, refuse entry to noncitizens, or cancel their visas, if they do not abide by Australian laws.

I want to bring to this debate a real lived experience of what it is to be an Australian and what Australian values are. The whole issue of Australian values has become the mission of one of my constituents, Mr Robert Suann. At first, I construed Mr Suann's ardent fervour to hammer home the point of values education on Australian values as some sort of anachronistic and atavistic agenda—well meaning but sort of unimportant. However, the more I listened, the more I realised how important the issues of values and character are to the very fabric of our society. Robert always reminds people of the riots in Cronulla, his home town, in 2005, and of how many of those involved could not identify with our Australian notions of the good and the upstanding. One understands Robert and his motivations a great deal more when one is informed that, for 70-odd years, Robert has been a boy scout.

The question for our community is: how can we take back common-sense, good, wholesome, traditional values from the scrap heap of history? One very easy and effective way is to stop the dilution of those values by persons of nefarious character. There should be no shame in saying that we have values and principles, and that this coalition government is willing to stand up for them. Visas should not be thrown around like confetti. Visas should not be sold to the highest questionable or criminal bidder. Visas are a golden ticket. In my home state of Western Australia, there is a saying that FIFO—referring to fly-in fly-out workers—should really stand for 'fit in or fly out'. Of course, that is the parliamentary version of that re-imagining of the FIFO acronym. I firmly believe that a fit in or fly out approach, or a 'Team Australia' approach, should also apply to our migration program.

The Migration Amendment (Character Cancellation Consequential Provisions) Bill 2016 provides the springboard to get to another key idea that has gone completely off the radar—that is, the idea of rights and responsibilities. Under the previous six years of Labor misrule and chaotic misgovernment, the balance of rights and responsibilities became only a question of rights—or, more succinctly, a question of: what can I get and what rights do I have?

In the context of visas and entry to the Australian homeland, this attitude will defile the integrity of the system and our society. By turning a blind eye to gross and aberrant characters, and by accepting all in good faith, we expose our people to unknown dangers. Enoch Powell's 'rivers of blood' may not have run, but that was because of the strong actions taken by successive conservative governments. I am proud to be part of a government that is bold in its actions and resolute in its decisions.

Let me get back to the idea of cancelling visas, as it fits into the rights and responsibilities paradigm. It is a question of balance or an equilibrium equation. It is a case of looking at the very fundamental building blocks of what it is to be a nation and a society. One looks to the societal contracts of Rousseau or Locke, and there it is in line 1: to protect the bodily integrity of each citizen and the integrity of the state. Even the visual idea of the contract is relevant to this debate—surrounding cancelling visas and making it easier for the minister to do so. After all, the Australian government is honouring its side of the contract or deal by protecting the bodily integrity and security of the person. But they are not living up their side of the deal—the deal being that, if one comes to this country, then one has to play by the rules as they stand, not change the rules because one does not like the rules. The minister of the day has a direct mandate and democratic imprimatur of the people. This is more powerful than a foreign, far-off institution or body. This legislation, through the increased power to the minister, empowers the people.

Let me now speak about the specifics. The Migration Amendment (Character Cancellation Consequential Provisions) Bill 2016 will make a number of amendments to give full effect to the substantive amendments made by the Migration Amendment (Character and General Visa Cancellation) Act 2014. These amendments will ensure that noncitizens who commit crimes in Australia, or who pose a risk to Australian society, are considered for visa refusal or cancellation.

This government has protected Australians by previously introducing a revocation power for the minister to personally set aside, in the national interest, decisions by his delegates or the AAT. The amendments in this particular bill will ensure that mandatory cancellation powers are consistent and comprehensive throughout the act so as to enact the original intent of the government's 2014 changes.

Our primary responsibility as legislators in this place is to protect the citizens of Australia. That is our first job and our first priority. The changes outlined in the bill are the first real attempt to update the security and protection features of the visa program since the mid-1990s. The world is a different place now. The changes outlined here demonstrate this coalition government's—and the Australian community's—low tolerance for criminal, non-compliant or fraudulent behaviour by those given the privilege of holding a visa to enter or stay in Australia.

Let me just mention the great unmentionable: the hardworking battler—the underpaid, overworked taxpayer. A weak or low threshold for character tests dilutes the nature of our system and costs us all more in the long run. Security is an expensive business. Prevention is always better than a cure. Prevention is also always cheaper than a cure.

The people we seek to remove from the Australian community, or ban from entering the Australian community in the first place, are against us. They are people who hate freedom. They hate us because we Australians love freedom. It is not enough to have an Australian residency visa to be an Australian. One needs to live the values, the hopes and the dreams of an Australian. One needs to embrace the history of Australia. This bill is carrying the message of John Howard, when he said in 2001:

We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come.

This government is continuing that strong tradition of putting the Australian people first. Under Labor, the people smugglers and evil doers came first. Career criminals, drug peddlers and others like them were put first.

This bill will ensure that the confidential information that is critical to decision making will be given the same protections as other character provisions in the act. This bill will give full effect to the policy of mandatory cancellation. It puts beyond doubt that a noncitizen who is subject to a mandatory character cancellation decision will be removed from Australia.

This bill has given this government the strengthened ability to identify noncitizens with character concerns by amending the definition of 'character concern' to be consistent with the character test contained in section 501 of the Migration Act. Noncitizens who meet the amended and broader definition of being of character concern may have a personal identifier disclosed in accordance with permitted disclosure provisions of this act. This amendment has ensured that the minister's power to cancel a visa will not be affected or limited by any visa cancellation provisions of this act.

It is this government's commitment to ensure that noncitizens who pose a risk to the Australian community are dealt with effectively and efficiently. This bill will allow the detention of a person who is reasonably suspected of being subject to visa cancellation, as well as requiring the release of that person as soon as the officer becomes aware that there will be no cancellation.

This government will also ensure, via this amendment bill, that a person whose visa has been cancelled by the minister under section 501BA of the Migration Act will have any outstanding visas or visa applications they hold cancelled by operation of law. With this bill this coalition government is showing foresight in pulling down the shutters on that type of person setting foot on our golden soil. This should not be a land of opportunity for the young criminal. We will not and cannot let this nation ever become known as a soft touch.

In the final analysis the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection has the power, under section 501 of the Migration Act 1958, to refuse a person's application for a visa, or cancel a person's visa, if that person fails to satisfy the minister that he or she passes the character test. The Migration Amendment (Character Cancellation Consequential Provisions) Bill 2016 will amend the Migration Act to ensure that the substantive amendments made to the Migration Act in late 2014 are given full effect and to ensure that the character-related provisions are dealt with consistently through the Migration Act—not through Human Rights Watch or any other limp-wristed, loony-Left, leaf-eating Luddite organisation.

During the 2011-12 financial year 88 people had their visa applications refused and 157 people had their visas cancelled on this basis. This is a paltry figure, given that we know that Labor's legacy was 30,000 people in community detention awaiting processing. It is a pathetic figure, given that we know that paperwork was often and regularly destroyed, forged or fabricated.

I am calling on the minister to use these new powers with gusto. I make this call because it is what my constituents of Tangney would want—to protect the safety and security of all the people of Australia. That is the mandate that I have in this place.

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