Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Hansard source

I note the member for Bruce is here. He was with me on that occasion, and the member for Calwell was particularly interested in this. It was about women who had experienced certain challenges in their life meeting with other women and sharing their experiences, and providing that vital support. That was a great program, not just in Germany but in the Netherlands as well. It had been operating in Rotterdam, from memory. It had been commended around the world, even in Australia. We need that type of program here in Australia. That's one of the great recommendations.

There are many other good recommendations here. For example, the idea of a youth mentoring program—a pilot program. The importance of role models was critical. Les Twentyman talked about that to us in evidence he gave. Another one was establishing a sport and active recreation program. We saw the importance of sports like basketball and soccer, or football, as many people call it. I love soccer as well. I used to play it for many years. It's really important to do that.

It's also important for agencies to talk with each other. One of the things that we found was that the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission should get funding for the express purpose of data collection on the visa status of offenders, for example, for inclusion in the national database and for national criminal intelligence systems. It's important that agencies talk to one another and that police talk to the Department of Immigration and Border Protection.

We also looked at a justice reinvestment approach in relation to these communities. We commended the work done by the Senate Standing Committee on Education and Employment, and the committee also looked at what they had done when I was chair of the Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs in the House of Representatives. The Doing time—time for doing report also talked about a justice reinvestment process and programs, an approach to Indigenous communities, and how that might work in migrant communities.

But I've got to say that we dissented—the Labor MPs—in relation to this particular report. This committee was hijacked—simply hijacked—by the member for La Trobe, as chair, in an attempt to reflect issues in his own electorate. He went ahead and drew conclusions and made recommendations with minimal or no evidence, based on opinion and anecdote. It was not fact based. Labor's position is always to listen to our security and intelligence agencies, and that's why we do, including listening to Victoria Police. The purpose of this inquiry was to investigate issues relating to migrant settlement outcomes. As the Labor Party, if we're in government we'll always work with state and territory colleagues to examine how Commonwealth support can be provided. We rely on robust evidence, not anecdote and opinion. We dissented from what we saw with this particular committee and its recommendations. Despite minimal or no evidence, the report focused on young humanitarian entrants from Sudanese background in relation to a certain part of Melbourne. That's what the member for La Trobe was clearly doing, regardless of what the police in Victoria, or any other agencies, experts, community or anyone involved in settlement, the legal profession or local communities recommended to him.

The report did not reflect the evidence and ignored the wider Australian migration situation. The focus of the inquiry was to be on humanitarian entrants and youth crime. That's what the member for La Trobe thought. He missed a big opportunity to focus on the settlement outcomes for the majority of Australians. Humanitarian entrants make up less than 10 per cent of Australia's annual migrant intake. The report advocates for flexibility in settlement arrangements.

We were concerned about what we saw. We were concerned about the line of questioning we saw the member for La Trobe undertake. It was clear he was about making sure there should be an extension of section 501 to people under the age of 18. What he really couldn't understand is that we strongly support the cancellation of visas on character ground under section 501 and voted for that in parliament. The immigration minister has many powers to refuse or cancel visas of noncitizens who don't meet the character test, irrespective of age. But he relied on thought bubbles. That's what's happened with the member for La Trobe.

He actually came up with the conclusions without facts to support them. It's very clear from the report that it was based on the opinion of one person or one organisation. He didn't take into consideration the actual Victorian crime statistics, which show that the proportion of incidents committed by alleged offenders under the age of 25 had fallen from half of all incidents in 2007-08 to 40 per cent of all incidents. The number of young people in detention on sentences also was down. Sentences in children's court since 2008-09 were halved, with only a small number receiving sentences of detention. Victoria had the lowest rate of children under justice supervision in Australia. The Crimes Statistics Agency Victoria clearly showed that the vast majority of offenders were Australian born and older than 25 years of age. The facts of the submissions and the evidence given did not support the conclusion of the member for La Trobe, but he insisted, and that's why Labor dissented.

It's important that we look at what happens with respect to those people who may come across section 501 of the Migration Act. The minister has the power now to cancel a visa, but you've got to take into consideration the fact that cancelling a young person's visa could potentially breach Australia's non-refoulement obligations. A person subject to visa refusal or cancellation might be subject to arbitrary immigration detention for prolonged periods, leading to separation of family and increased alienation in the broader migrant community.

In addition to that, the member for La Trobe wanted to establish a hotline, which we dissented from because we thought it should be a hotline across the country. Finally, despite the fact that the British authorities had canned the idea of intervention orders—Theresa May, the British Prime Minister, canned this idea—he insisted we should use them, without any evidence whatsoever and in spite of their being outside the scope of the inquiry. In fact, the intervention order regime is being looked as a term of reference of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security.

The member for La Trobe, the chair of this committee, did a great disservice to this committee. We will see how he goes in the future, but this is a real shame. This is a great report as far as recommendations 1 to 14 are concerned, but it should have been great for recommendations 1 to 18.

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