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

I thank all of those members for their contributions to the second reading debate on the Migration Amendment (Validation of Decisions) Bill 2017. I also acknowledge the very different opinion of the member for Moreton when he is outside this chamber—when he thanks me for matters we were able to help him on in relation to constituents. He is nodding now. Thank you for being genuine outside this parliament. We just note that difference in your stance here in your contribution—the theatrics that go into it.

It was an interesting point made by the member for Moreton about getting people out of detention, because when he was a member of the Labor government thousands of children were put into detention on his watch, with not a word from him during the course of that. That was pretty outrageous and shows the hypocrisy of the member for Moreton. He was the person who was in a government that set up 17 detention centres and put people into those detention centres. I have got children out of detention and closed the 17 detention centres. We have not had a death on my watch as Minister for Immigration, whereas, under the member for Moreton and his government, 1,200 people drowned at sea, including women and children. The fact is that he, like many who sit beside him and around him, would go back to that terrible, horrible policy disaster tomorrow if they were elected at the next election. Don't look at the hypocrisy and grandstanding from some of those who see themselves as righteous in the Labor Party; look at what they said and, frankly, what they didn't say when the Labor Party was in government. It shines a light on the fact this Leader of the Opposition has a complete inability to rein in people like the member for Moreton, who would close the successful Operation Sovereign Borders and we would again see the deaths at sea and the children back in detention. Frankly, he has no more credibility on this than the Greens do.

This bill addresses the potential risk of people committing crimes in our community, and the current proceedings in the High Court of Australia deal with some of the issues that we seek to address in this bill. The purpose of the bill is to uphold the visa cancellations and applications refusals, on character grounds, of certain noncitizens who have committed very serious crimes in Australia or pose a risk to the safety of the Australian community. These include organised crime figures and those who pose a threat to national security.

Specifically, the bill amends the Migration Act of 1958 to preserve existing section 501 character decisions which have relied on information that is protected from disclosure under section 503A of the act. Section 503A protects information from disclosure when it is provided to the Department of Immigration and Border Protection by gazetted law enforcement or intelligence agencies to support a section 501 character visa application refusal or cancellation decision. This protects the information from disclosure to a court, a tribunal, a parliament or a parliamentary committee or any other body or person. The ability to protect information from disclosure is critical to the continuation of our highly successful relationship with law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Continuing to successfully counter crime is dependent on agencies like the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission being able to share information on the activities of non-citizen criminals with the Department of Immigration and Border Protection while their intelligence and sources remain protected.

The strengthening of the character test in late 2014 has led to the cancellation now of over 2,500 visas, including more than 140 held by organised crime figures. Without the information supplied by intelligence agencies, these criminals may have kept their visas and been free to continue their illicit activities. The amendments in this bill proactively address the risk to the safety of Australians and reflect the government's and the Australian community's low tolerance for criminal behaviour by those who are given the privilege of holding a visa to enter into and to stay in Australia. This is not the first time the parliament has considered validating legislation. In 2008, with the support of the coalition, Labor, then in government, passed similar amendments to section 501 of the Migration Act in response to an adverse decision in the Federal Court. The full Federal Court later upheld the amendments. We expect Labor's support today for these proposed amendments, and on that basis I commend the bill to the House.

See this speech in context