Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Hansard source

It is a complete nonsense, and it is a fabrication. But there are many other reasons, and I refer to media reports in The Daily Telegraph and other News Ltd newspapers today about fake marriages, to get to Australia. I can confirm that my department is aware of a number of illegal maritime arrivals from Iran who have entered into relationships with Australian citizens. A number have accepted assisted voluntary returns to go back to Iran and have subsequently entered Australia on prospective marriage visas. I am advised by my department that there are six known cases of illegal maritime arrivals—

Opposition members interjecting—

Well, they stop at six. Let me give you the detail and see how serious you are then. There are six known cases from Iran, marrying Australian citizens employed by the department's service providers on Manus Island. This suggests that they may be organised in this scheme to exploit marriage pathways to Australia. There is no information that a similar scheme is operating on Nauru, I am pleased to report.

Two of the transferees are known to have accepted one of the packages, around $7,000, to return to Iran. Two of the people who have accepted packages have subsequently entered Australia on prospective marriage visas. What we demonstrate is that people are entering into arrangements, they are subverting processes at the moment, and this government is moving to act against them. We are not going to allow people smugglers or people that enter into sham arrangements to rip off the Australian taxpayer or to rip off the generosity of the Australian people. We offer record numbers of refugees places in this country—

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