Andrew Giles (Scullin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Cities and Urban Infrastructure) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the Migration Amendment (Streamlining Visa Processing) Bill 2009 and to foreshadow that I will be moving a second reading amendment to this bill. But let me be very clear, Labor strongly believes in preserving and enhancing the integrity of Australia's immigration system. This is a core responsibility of national government, something that cannot be neglected, under resourced or, even worse, contracted out. We must ensure that everyone who enters Australia, having been granted a visa to do so, meets the conditions of that visa and complies with eligibility criteria including health and security checks, checks which are in place for good reason—to maintain the safety of all of us. For this reason, we on this side will be supporting the bill.

The legislation presently before the House would amend the Migration Act so as to enable the minister to prescribe that certain groups of visa applicants be required to provide one or more personal identifiers—biometric data—in order to make a valid visa application. These biometrics include: fingerprints, facial images, audio or visual recordings and an iris scan or signature. Personal identifiers along with other traditionally recorded data, such as full names and dates of birth, help in verifying that a person is who they claim to be and, importantly, effectively connect that person to security, law enforcement and immigration information. These changes are intended to streamline the process which is already in place, where the data requirement may only be imposed after an application has been lodged. I do note that a substantially similar bill was introduced in the last parliament on 29 November 2018 but that bill, like quite a few others, was not brought on for debate and lapsed when the 45th Parliament was dissolved—hardly streamlining.

The minister's second reading speech to this bill sets out the history of the biometrics program, which began in a very limited sense in 2006 but was significantly expanded following the enactment of the Migration Amendment (Strengthening Biometrics Integrity) Act in 2015. This enabled the minister or indeed his department to cause to be collected personal identifiers for a range of purposes under the act. I note that the 2015 bill raised a number of issues which were required to be balanced by lawmakers in this place—not only national security and visa integrity but also critical questions of privacy and human rights. Labor raised a number of concerns in this regard then but, having raised them and seen them considered through parliamentary processes, did not oppose the legislation. This bill, through a new proposed subsection 46(2A) would require a person who is included in a prescribed class of visa applicants to be required to provide certain personal identifiers in a specified way for their visa application to be considered valid. And proposed subsection 46(2B) provides that the minister may, by legislative instrument, make the relevant determinations about the provision of personal identifiers. Such an instrument would be non-disallowable. But, importantly, these new provisions would not have the effect of expanding the class of persons who may have provided personal identifiers from that which currently is the case. This is a power the minister already has and a matter that this parliament has already and quite recently considered.

What we are considering now really is already streamlining; although, again, we haven't rushed to secure this efficiency. The delay in bringing this legislation on for debate since last November is yet another marker of the disengagement by this government from its fundamental responsibilities—responsibilities that the Minister for Home Affairs talks about quite a lot but hasn't paid due attention to when it comes to discharging his legislative or indeed his administrative responsibilities. This is about streamlining through providing that the requirement for personal identifiers can be at the start of the application process. We accept that what the government is doing is for good reason in protecting applicants from identity fraud and, of course, in strengthening our border security and national security—shared aspirations across this parliament.

I do note that the bill that was introduced in the previous parliament was referred to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee and that that committee then recommended that the bill be passed. It's important to note that this bill, while re-introduced as a new proposed act, is no different in substantive terms from that which was introduced in the last parliament. It is also important that the same can be said of the explanatory memorandum. That is also in the same terms as that previously introduced and previously considered by the Senate committee.

When I think about issues of national security in terms of our borders and the integrity and efficacy of our visa system, I remind members in the House and particularly members opposite, who don't seem particularly interested in talking about this, that next month a decision is to be made in respect of tenders to, in effect, privatise aspects of Australia's visa processing services. This is something which really is quite extraordinary. It is extraordinary that any Australian government would seek to contract out its obligation to determine entry into the country, let alone one so focused—rhetorically at any rate—on issues of border security and national security. It's extraordinary that this government won't speak about this—won't explain why it is going down this path, why the national interest is served by this process—much less seek to justify its decision-making in this place or to the wider community. I don't believe that the Minister for Home Affairs—and he will of course have an opportunity to correct the record if I'm wrong—has spoken about the visa privatisation proposal for more than two years. This is quite telling. It's also telling, of course, that the speakers list for this bill does not feature a single government member—not one—speaking to these important issues that the substantive bill is dealing with or these wider issues that go to the operation of our visa processing services and, indeed, the prospect of those services being privatised.

It is one thing that the Prime Minister and, indeed, the Minister for Immigration, the member for Banks, aren't speaking about this tender. They have recused themselves from the process due to their relationships with Mr Scott Briggs, and I make no criticism of them in this regard. This is the right thing to have done to ensure that conflicts of interest and perceived conflicts are avoided. That's the right thing to do. But it can't excuse the complete silence from the whole of government and, in particular, the Minister for Home Affairs. It can't. This is a billion-dollar decision that we are talking about. It carries far-reaching consequences: job losses, risk of data security breaches and risk to system integrity—visa fraud in particular. Further worker exploitation is also a likely consequence of a decision of this nature, and government members should be thinking about this in the context of this bill, which is intended to progress our shared goals to boost our security at the border. But they're silent too. They are silent on visa privatisation, its impacts and its consequences just as they are silent when it comes to this bill. And so I move:

That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House:

(1)notes that the Government's plan to privatise Australia's visa system will lead to:

(a)cuts to services, increased risk of visa fraud, worker exploitation, and data security breaches; and

(b)the loss of around 2,000 jobs Australia-wide; and

(2)urges the Government to stop its privatisation of Australia's visa system".

And so, in considering the bill and this amendment, let's remember what's been happening when it comes to visa processing, which is a disaster under this government. Surely we can do better in this regard when it comes to boosting the integrity of our immigration system at large and making improvements to its functioning more generally? Both matter, of course.

Modern Australia has been built on immigration, and that's something that's often rightly celebrated in this place on all sides of politics. But we must acknowledge that these foundations are being undermined. They are being undermined at a number of levels. Administrative changes which have led to the creation of the Department of Home Affairs—a bit of empire-building on the part of the member for Dickson—have devalued the critical immigration function at a structural level but also, as we've seen, at a cultural level, when so many experienced officials have left the service. It has devalued the important role of immigration services and settlement support.

These are important questions, and the context is very, very significant. In 2017 to 2018 the Department of Home Affairs processed close to 8.7 million temporary visas—student, tourist and temporary worker visas amongst others—which was a significant increase on the previous year, and this volume is forecast to continue to increase to perhaps 13 million per annum by 2026-27. There were also a large number of permanent visas granted in that time—162,000 under the migration program as well as over 16,000 under the humanitarian program. On this side of the House we are deeply concerned about how this government is handling this ever-increasing demand on our immigration system in the context of neglected frontline services across the Department of Home Affairs, as it is now styled. We know that this is having a very significant impact on visa processing times. People are waiting longer to be reunited with family members or even to settle. Visa processing times are out of control under this government, and those applying for partner visas are now waiting for more than two years.

We now have around 200,000 people on bridging visas in Australia. This is as eloquent an admission of failure on the part of this government as anything could possibly be. But what's the government doing about this? What's the government doing about successive ANAO reports? I've got to acknowledge my colleague the member for Bruce, who's highlighted the volume of visa processing delays and citizenship delays, which are also critically important. What he and members on this side of the House are concerned about is not just the statistics, shocking as they are, but the human stories that underpin them in a nation such as Australia—a nation built on immigration. These changes aren't measurable by statistics alone. They are shaping and diminishing individuals' lives, and they're diminishing all of us.

And what's the government doing about it? Instead of properly funding the visa processing system and instead of respecting the wonderful women and men who work for the Department of Home Affairs, who work for all of us in the critical functions of supporting our immigration program and maintaining our border security and our national security—these people are treated with contempt. They're being treated with contempt as workers, as is the value of the work that they do on our behalf. And this is a disgrace.

Can I put on the record my deep appreciation for those workers and my appreciation for the time that some of them have spent with me explaining the significance of the work they do, their pride in the work they do and their frustration that it is not properly acknowledged by a government that likes to talk about border security and the roles that it plays but that is not properly supporting them. Those workers should be supported. They should be acknowledged in the words of the minister and the government and, more fundamentally, in the deeds of the minister and the government. But, instead, we see the absolute opposite. Instead of properly supporting our visa processing system, the government is proposing to privatise the visa processing system. We know what this will result in because we've seen an experiment just like this in the United Kingdom.

I'd encourage government members to acquaint themselves with what has happened since the UK government introduced the profit motive to this aspect of their immigration system. What we have seen is the ability of very wealthy individuals effectively to jump the queue. What we have seen is a downgrading of services for ordinary people, a devaluing of their experience and their engagement with the system and, indeed, their connection to their country. There have been a series of shocking revelations in the UK, which are causing great disquiet in their parliament—which, of course, has been dealing with a few other things at the moment—and across the UK media.

I think people in Australia, a country to which immigration is so fundamentally important to how we are as a nation and to our economy, should look very carefully at what has happened in the UK and, at the same time, listen very carefully to those workers in Australia undertaking this work, because there are actually a few additional concerns above and beyond the prospect of the profit motive being introduced here. We are talking about the potential loss of 2,000 jobs—a number not of our creation but a feature of the government's own costings in the lead-up to the election. It was that side of politics over there, the members opposite, who put before the Australian people the prospect of sacking 2,000 public servants connected to this critical work. That's 2,000 jobs around the country—some in regional centres, where this will have an enormous impact, not only on the individuals and their families but also on the communities they live and work in. This is something that I urge government members to think about—think about supporting this second reading amendment and sending a message to those people that they are valued by some on the conservative side of politics.

We also know that there are two tenders proceeding, one of which, as I noted earlier, is very closely associated with Mr Scott Briggs, a significant donor to the Liberal Party of New South Wales and the LNP in Queensland too. We've heard recent revelations by the journalist Michael West of other donors being connected to this. These are things which are very deeply concerning, above and beyond the prospect of job losses: the prospect of creating two tiers of access to our visa processing system, the prospect of data security breaches and the prospect of further worker exploitation. It seems odd to say that in an environment where we have nearly 200,000 people on bridging visas, where we see wage theft connected to that that is absolutely epidemic across the Australian economy. It is not only impacting those vulnerable people on bridging visas themselves but also spreading across the entire labour market—an issue that my colleague the shadow minister for home affairs has put squarely before the government and across the community, including a number of organisations that are not traditionally the closest of allies to the Australian Labor Party, like the National Farmers Federation, but in respect of which the government remains refusing to listen.

Again, it is time for the government to clean up a mess that they have created—a mess that they have created by creating an empire for the member for Dickson, an empire which has devalued some fundamentally important functions. We are starting to see the consequences of that—economy-wide consequences and individual consequences. It's time to clean up the mess, not walk away good jobs and walk away from the national interest, and, most fundamentally, to do so without making the case for a decision. This is a billion-dollar tender—a billion-dollar tender going to fundamental functions of government—and yet they won't talk about it.

The minister will have an opportunity to sum up, and perhaps he might touch on the reasons, if he can find any, as to why he won't be supporting the second reading amendment, which puts squarely the Labor Party's view of how the national interest is to be served when it comes to visa processing. We support the substantive bill before the House because it is in the national interest to do so. We support and urge government members to support the second reading amendment because we know that visa privatisation is not in the national interest.

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