Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration, Integration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Migration Legislation Amendment (Information and Other Measures) Bill 2007 is not of itself controversial, although the delay in the bill reaching the parliament certainly is of some concern. The bill is an attempt to correct previous legislation where the government had in fact overreached from where it intended to be. To date, the relevant migration legislation, since amendments were carried in 2004, has had a level of privacy protection much higher than the levels provided by the Privacy Act. This, in turn, has resulted in some concerns which the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship outlined in his second reading speech.

In his second reading speech, the minister raised some very serious concerns about consequences which would appear to have been entirely unintended by all members of parliament when the amendments were carried early in 2004. I was not here at the time; it occurred during the previous parliament. The provisions imposed criminal penalties when privacy information about personal identifiers was handed over. I quote from the minister’s second reading speech:

My department’s ability to continue normal working practices is being seriously hampered and in some instances activities have been discontinued as a result.

The minister continued:

... my department can no longer disclose photos and signatures to investigate and prosecute some Migration Act offences. My department can also no longer disclose photos and signatures to law enforcement agencies or the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions for the prosecution of crimes that are not immigration related.

As all members would understand, it can very often be the case that if someone has been involved in drug trafficking or people smuggling or in a number of other offences where their personal identifiers will be held by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship, they may well have committed a number of offences and the most serious of those offences may not be the offences contained within the migration legislation itself but may be offences contained in other legislation. A situation where those personal identifiers cannot be passed on carries a number of problems.

The personal identifiers I am referring to are ones defined as signatures, photographs, height and weight measurements, fingerprints, iris scans and audio or video recordings. All of these personal identifiers can be essential in prosecuting—for instance, in establishing that you have the right person or when there is an aggravated approach to the offence by the DPP because it is believed that somebody is in fact a reoffender. For example, some of the people involved in illegal fishing are treated very differently from how they were treated on the occasion of their first offence when they are caught a second time. So the capacity to be able to use that information is very important.

The fact is that a standard of privacy way beyond that required in the Privacy Act was inserted in error in 2004. It is a mistake that obviously was not known to the parliament at the time; otherwise, one would hope the government would not have proposed it and one can guarantee the opposition would not have supported it. So it has to be corrected and this legislation goes some way in doing that.

There are also some other things that were entirely unintended. The best example of that I can give is when you wanted to access your own movement records. The only way you could do that up until this amending legislation was introduced was to FOI your own movement records. Certainly, it is a pretty big call to say that there are privacy concerns about whether or not you can access your own data. So it is important that these issues be corrected.

There is one very serious public policy concern that I do not think for one moment is something that falls at the feet of the department or at the feet of the current minister—he has not been minister for long and we are already dealing with this—but it does certainly raise concerns for the way the government has handled a mistake of this nature. We are talking about some serious offenders. We heard an attempted vigorous attack on me in question time yesterday by the minister. I certainly agree with what he said about the real dangers and problems of people smuggling. I do not agree with his character assessment of me—and that is probably no surprise—but I do agree with the real concerns and dangers of people smuggling.

People have their lives put at risk on the high seas. We want to make sure that the people responsible are prosecuted. We want to do everything within our capacity to make sure that, where charges can be laid, they result in convictions. In the same way as where the smuggling does not involve the movement of people but involves the smuggling of drugs or other illicit substances, we want to make sure that people can be charged and that those charges lead to a successful prosecution and conviction, with the full force of the law brought down on those people who are either putting the lives of some desperate people completely at risk on the high seas or pretending that the Australian border just does not matter, whether they are plundering our fish stocks or bringing illicit substances into our country.

What does concern me is the way the Howard government has dealt with this issue. We are now in 2007; the mistake was made in 2004. There can be a lag time in it coming to light, but from the information that is contained in the Bills Digest, prepared by the Parliamentary Library, the unintended consequences of these privacy provisions came to light in late 2005. That is a very long time for this parliament and for this government to turn a blind eye to a real concern about the capacity of the DPP to engage in successful convictions.

As I said, I do not put the blame for this at the feet of the department and, given that he has only been minister for a few months, I do not think it is fair to put the blame on the current minister. But I have to say to the government that the unintended consequences came to light in 2005 and it waited until quite a few weeks into 2007 before bothering to do anything about it. There are a whole lot of words in the final question in question time yesterday about how seriously we take incursions across our border that could be quoted back—and probably deserve to be quoted back—at the government as a whole. We are talking about a complaint from the DPP, no less, saying that there are occasions now where we have people who have come into Australia unlawfully, people who may have been involved in the drug trade or in other sorts of smuggling operations or in illegal fishing, and we cannot actually convict them because, with the best will in the world, a mistake—as far as I can tell, a genuine mistake—was made by this parliament at the beginning of 2004.

That mistake came to light in late 2005—and I accept there needs to be time for drafting—but why on earth we went through the whole of the last calendar year and waited until now to correct this anomaly is a complete mystery to me. All I ask of the government—and I do not think it is an unreasonable ask—is that, if it turns out that this amending legislation does not fix the problem, for heaven’s sake get in here and fix it. I do not want to be in a situation where people breach our border unlawfully and there is nothing we can do because the government did not bother, yet for the whole of 2006 that was precisely the situation that we were in.

Despite the lack of patrol vessels, despite all the different problems they have and how illegal fishing has been allowed to run rife—despite all of those problems—they want to get up here and thump the lectern. They do not thump this one—I hope it is not too long before they do! They thump that lectern there and want to make all the allegations about people being too relaxed and not taking border protection seriously. Well, step 1: if there is a loophole that is operating to the benefit of people who breach the border, fix it. Do not let a 12-month period go past while it is being ignored. That is precisely what has happened for the last 12 months. What was the breach? Of all things, it was on the basis of privacy—on the basis of a right to privacy for the drug smuggler, the illegal fisher or the people smuggler—that this was allowed to go on.

I do not want to believe—and I think it would be an unfair slur against the government to claim that—that was the right to privacy they were asserting. I think it was quite simply an issue of neglect and incompetence; until you get to an election year, these issues do not become a priority. We are in an election year now and all of a sudden it is a matter of saying, ‘Quick, we’d better listen to what the DPP has been saying.’ I have no doubt that when the DPP raised these concerns work would have begun in the department immediately to do something about it. The problem is that the department on its own cannot change the law. It actually takes an elected member of parliament to bother to translate that into legislation and to stand up here and do something about it. So, why the delay, I do not know. But the fact that we are here now debating the legislation is something that I am glad about.

The bill has to deal with parallel changes to four other pieces of legislation—the Fisheries Management Act 1991, the Torres Strait Fisheries Act 1994 and the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, in addition to the Migration Act. That is significant. It appears that what we have before us is a fix of that concern. We have an attempt here to fix the unintended consequence of the 2004 amendments. We have proposed legislation which allows the department to disclose to a person their own movement records, getting rid of the bizarre situation where somebody had a right to privacy against themselves. As anomalies go, that was a creative one—I will give it that.

We have an alteration of the definition of ‘fisheries detention offence’ to include new fisheries offences which were introduced in 2006, to ensure that those arrested for committing the new offences receive an enforcement visa on their arrival in Australia. The reason we have the mirror provisions that I referred to before is that, even though somebody may be initially detained under a series of different offences, once they reach Australia and are placed in immigration detention you need to make sure that once those identifiers are taken they are able to be accessed for all the different pieces of legislation.

Bringing everything in line with the Privacy Act is good. Getting rid of some exemptions that were at best probably described as ‘bizarre’—some of those exemptions on having to FOI your own details—is good. There are some different issues of detail; some of those were already referred to by the minister in the second reading speech and there is no reason to go through them again. The government has brought forward legislation that needs to be brought forward.

One day I might find out why there was a delay of 12 months. To find the answer I may have to make a trip to Rome or to Beijing to ask the person responsible. I am not sure whether that information will ever become available. Certainly, it reflects extremely poorly on the government to have shown a level of neglect on, of all things, this issue when it actually came to light from a specific complaint from the DPP. The opposition supports the legislation.

Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am not sure whether it is ‘Come stai, paisano’ or ‘Xiexie, ni’ to the member for Watson. Either way, I am happy to follow the contribution of the member for Watson. I can give him an answer. The government began the process of drafting this correction in May of last year. Within a few months of finding that error, having it drawn to its attention, the government sent the matter off for drafting. The process of drafting is always subject to the other priorities of the parliament. At the end of it, here we are in March of 2007 fixing the matter. I do not disagree with the ambition of the member for Watson for things to have happened faster; I do not disagree with his contention that there was an unintended consequence in the 2004 legislation—mainly because I think I might have been the minister introducing that legislation at the time. Nevertheless, we all take our advice and I am happy to stand here today very much in defence of the government’s efforts in this regard.

As it stands, the big difference between this side and that side, between the government of the Liberal Party and the National Party and the opposition of the Australian Labor Party, is that we see migration as a nation-building exercise. The Australian Labor Party, through their efforts in office, have always seen it as a constituency-building exercise. This is just not my contention. The poor member for Watson has been handed the poisoned chalice of immigration. In the 13 years that they were in office, they had seven immigration ministers. On that side, they could not get rid of it fast enough. In the 11 years they have been in opposition they have had seven shadow ministers. They cannot get rid of it fast enough. I do not know who the member for Watson upset on his side but he is the shadow minister for immigration. Actually, it is not called ‘immigration’ on your side, is it, Member for Watson? Nevertheless, he is there. Good on him. He struggled through his 15 minutes. It was like listening to two five-minute speeches with a bit of a hook between.

I want to acknowledge the member for Petrie, who is in the chamber. She is the Assistant Minister for Immigration and Citizenship. She is well able to do that job, and I congratulate her on her recent appointment to that position, a recognition of her ability and skills and her long-term service to the people of Petrie—may it continue for many, many more years. She understands very completely, as I do—and I suspect you do too, Mr Deputy Speaker Barresi—that the Australian Labor Party do not really have their hearts in it when it comes to migration.

On this side, as I said, we see it as nation building. We see the sense of resourcing those who have arrived in Australia in a way that gives them the tools they need to fully integrate. On that side, they like to create a sense of victimhood, a sense of ‘You’re always a migrant, you’re always different, you’re always disadvantaged, you’re never going to get anywhere, so if you vote Labor we’ll give you lots of social welfare.’ That is the sort of constituency the Australian Labor Party have always tried to build through their migration program.

I make that point in recognition of the fact that the Migration Legislation Amendment (Information and Other Measures) Bill 2007 is going to facilitate the passage of people through our migration system. It is also going to enhance the integrity of every person who passes through it. It is going to further ensure that everybody who legitimately comes to Australia is here having passed all of the tests—the security tests, the criminal checks, the terrorism checks and the health checks. If they have not passed those checks then the agencies that deal with people who should not be here or people who have involved themselves in other activities are well able to get hold of that information. That is what this bill is about. It is another example of the Howard government building on the integrity and the legitimacy of every person who passes through the migration system, because they are an important part of the energy of this economy. They are aspirational in every way, shape and form.

Nobody leaves their country of birth—either unwillingly or by choice, either as the richest of business migrants or as the poorest of refugees—to fail. No-one comes to Australia with any ambition other than to do better than where they have come from. That ambition to succeed is very much at the heart of the energy that the one in four Australians who were born in another country represent. And there is another group of Australians—one in four again—who have at least one parent born in another country. Basically half of this nation’s 20 million-plus people, half of our population, have got this energy to do better than in the old country, to succeed at some sort of level relative to where they came from.

That is a very misunderstood energy on the opposition side. On that side they say, ‘You’re going to fail.’ On this side we say: ‘How do we help you succeed? How do we teach you English? How do we get a recognition of the skills and education that you had in your old place? How do we get that recognition to work in our workforce? How do we get you to do what is in your heart, in your mind, in your ambition to succeed? How do we get you on your two feet?’ Those are the sorts of things that we turn our minds to. The dignity and the effort of those who have come to this country should be applauded at every given opportunity. But those opposite always try and find some doubt about the legitimacy of those who come here—that perhaps they are never going to get anywhere because they wear different clothes or have different skin or whatever. I am not suggesting that they are outwardly causing this distress by their actions, but they are by the systemic way that they go about it.

Look at the way state governments do it. In Queensland I have a problem that the state government of Queensland refuses to assist with. When I was the Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs, every state government had this view: ‘You imported them; they’re your problem. So some kids need some further English language assistance. So some parents need some further quick assessments of the abilities and skills they have. So some people need a helping hand to coordinate the way they operate in our local communities. We’ll send that problem to the feds.’

I remember a classic in Shepparton, where I had an official from the Victorian driver’s licence registering authority saying: ‘We’ve got all these Iraqi women in Shepparton and they all want to get driver’s licences. You guys had better start giving us translators so we can check that they know how to drive their cars and they know what they’re doing.’ I said to this chap: ‘Mate, that should be a consideration of the Victorian government, in that they take taxes from and represent this constituency of people who are working in the community and who want to advance themselves. You have the responsibility to make sure that, no matter where they’ve come from, no matter what their language skills happen to be, they have the proper skills to know how to drive a car.’ This kind of ‘flick it off to the feds’ approach from state Labor governments that have rivers of gold flowing to them is of great concern.

I put it on the record that the Labor Party had seven immigration ministers in their 13 years in government and have had seven shadow ministers in their 11 years in opposition. That is 14 people who have flicked immigration as fast as they could over 24 years of Labor Party history. Some recent comments about some of these matters will underscore my point. The former ALP president Barry Jones has actually admitted that the Labor Party mismanaged migration. He said that the focus was used to build up a long-term political constituency. In other words, they would go to groups and say: ‘What do you want? We’ll do it for you. Don’t tell the other mob down the street who are from a different background from you, and as long as party A does not talk to party B then we’ll get away with it.’ It was to build a long-term political constituency. It was different treatment for different people, not a nation-building exercise but a political constituency-building exercise.

Chris Hurford, a former member in this place, a former Labor Party Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs, one of the 14 Labor Party people with responsibility for immigration over the last 24 years, admitted that in the case of Australian citizen Sheikh Taj el-Din al-Hilali, for instance, permanent residency was granted because they believed this would have some political influence at a New South Wales state government election. And in a recent edition of the Weekend Australian the former Prime Minister Paul Keating confessed his continual defence of the decision to grant Sheikh Taj his permanent residency.

I simply make the point that the bill before us is about building on the integrity of our migration system. It is about ensuring that you cannot have a migration system that is about building a political constituency; it is about ensuring that we have legitimate people coming to this country to participate with the energy and ambition that they have in their hearts and their minds. For some of those people it is going to be about going beyond just the survival that they have had to endure in, say, their country of birth, where they fled as refugees to a neighbouring country. In Australia today we see lots of people falling into that constituency—many of them in my own electorate—people who have fled from Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia and Eritrea; and from western African countries like Sierra Leone. There are people in the suburbs of Sunnybank, Yeronga and Moorooka who fall into that category. These people need our assistance to survive and to succeed, but we do not need to see them as victims and we do not need to keep them locked on social welfare.

We need to also ensure that every one of them, because of the integrity measures contained in this bill, will be able to look every other person in the local community in the eye and say: ‘I am legitimately here. If you have a question about my legitimacy there are systems in place.’ The government has in fact ensured that our borders are not only secure—that we not only decide who can come and the conditions under which they come—but in fact that everybody who does come here through the migration system is a legitimate entrant to Australia and a legitimate contributor to our potential wealth.

Nothing gives me greater personal joy than to see these people who have come with nothing get something through their own efforts. Nothing gives me greater joy than to watch people I have met over the time I have been privileged to be the member for Moreton come to me and say, ‘I have for the first time bought my own house.’ In fact, I know the Abraham family who came from Eritrea and bought a house at Darra. They got a letter from the bank after all the effort of the family to pay this house off inside five years—a letter I have never seen—which said: ‘Congratulations. Now that you have paid off your home loan, can you borrow more money?’ What a fantastic story. They are now living over in the member for Ryan’s electorate. They have moved over to the posh side of town—and good on them. I would like them in Moreton, because I am sure they will vote for me. They are the sort of energetic, aspirational people that Australia’s migration system brings to this country. Despite my aside about how I would love them to vote for me, it is not to build up a political constituency that is looking for favour from one side of politics over the other but one that in fact is about the energy, effort and ambition to get ahead. That is why what this government does in every piece of legislation it brings forward is about refurbishing that, reinforcing that and re-encouraging that.

I have met people in refugee camps in places like the Kakuma camp in Kenya when I was a minister—and I would hope that the Assistant Minister for Immigration and Citizenship may have a similar opportunity at some stage. Minister Ruddock, when he had responsibility for the immigration portfolio, said to me, ‘Nothing will firm more in your mind how important Australia’s role in resettlement of refugees is than actually seeing for yourself.’ Spending a day in Kakuma—92,000 people living in five separate camps around the Kakuma River right up at the edge of the Rift Valley desert in Kenya—firmed very strongly in my mind just how desperate these people are and how hungry they are to not just simply survive but to rebuild their lives and succeed. Most of them want to go back to where they have come from—to their place of birth—and it is understandable. But for the few thousand each year who come from places like Kakuma, Cairo and other places to Australia, they bring with them an enormous energy and an enormous point of difference. It is important that we continue to resource their efforts to make a difference in Australia.

This is why I get frustrated. Around Moorooka we have a lot of African faces—people who are opening up businesses along the Moorvale shopfronts in Beaudesert Road. I know the Eritrean women’s group are now seeking some funding under some of the work of the Department of Transport and Regional Services to help them launch a restaurant with the fantastic foods and coffees of that region. People are opening businesses. I remember about six or seven years ago opening a business of someone who said, ‘No-one knows how to cut Africans’ hair.’ It is a very tight curl, Mr Deputy Speaker Barresi; I am sure you had some at some stage earlier in your life! I know you will be warning me in a moment to sit down! They recognised an opportunity and had the ambition and the wherewithal to do it—and why? Because Australia encouraged them by giving them a place that was secure in which to live and encouragement and a set of tools to integrate fully into the community. This business is thriving. It has people from all over the south side of Brisbane coming to get their hair cut.

Identifying information provisions were inserted into the Migration Act in 2004 which created a scheme for the collection, access and disclosure of personal identifiers in various circumstances. Some of that had to be rectified. That of course is part of the ongoing work of government. This bill will also allow the Department of Immigration and Citizenship to disclose to a person an individual’s movement records, avoiding the requirement for them to FOI them. It will ensure some of the key circumstances are things such as the prevention or lessening of a serious threat to life. For instance, if the department held a photograph of someone who had made a threat against an Australian high commission or embassy overseas, these amendments would allow the department to actually provide that photograph to the Australian Federal Police. These are common-sense provisions. Unfortunately, with the sort of world in which we live today, these are provisions that we have to make sure are right. I suspect that the world continues to change, as it did after September 11, 2001, and what might have been true in 2004 may not be true in 2007. This government is prepared constantly to upgrade that.

I know that the Migration Agents Registration Authority, MARA, will also get some assistance under this bill to investigate complaints against migration agents. There is certainly a code of conduct for migration agents. I had a few tussles with them a few years ago about that. We want to see a professional standard of conduct amongst migration agents. People do not have to use them to access the migration system, but when they do, they have got to make sure that the migration advice they get is professional and of high standard. We need to make sure that clients are protected from unscrupulous agents. This bill will certainly assist MARA in that work.

Of course, with regard to the enforcement of criminal law in areas such as drug importation investigations and prosecutions, some of that work has been hampered and delayed by the provisions we are amending in this bill today. The reality is that there will be a new permitted disclosure ground to allow the Department of Immigration and Citizenship to provide identifying information, when reasonably necessary, for the enforcement and investigation of criminal law. By every possible measure, each of these particular, apparently technical but nevertheless very necessary, amendments within this bill made good sense.

At the end of it, the motivation behind this needs to be restated: this government is committed to ensuring that every person who passes through our migration system gains legitimacy and dignity in the eyes of every one of the beholders of Australian citizenship. We need to celebrate the new entrants into our country and we need to know each and every one of them is legitimately placed in Australia. It is the way you build a nation.

For those of us who have perhaps had generations of Australian citizenship, or for those of us who have come in our own lifetime and taken up citizenship, our key role, knowing these people are legitimately here, is to cross the road and shake them by the hand and make them welcome. If you think about it, if you move into a new house and your next door neighbour never talks to you, how awkward do you feel? How many mistakes could you make? How many high prices could you pay at the shop down the road because the neighbour has not told you where the better prices are?

It is the role of every Australian citizen, every long-term permanent resident, to think about others as they would like them to also be thought about. Cross the road, shake their hand and make your next best friend, knowing very firmly that the person whose hand you are shaking has passed legitimately into Australia through what is world’s best practice when it comes to migration anywhere in the world. There is no other country that does it better than Australia, and this bill certainly reinforces that point.

Phillip Barresi (Deakin, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Moreton. I allowed quite a deal of flexibility during the debate, but I caution him on the need to be relevant to the bill in the future.

Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Migration Legislation Amendment (Information and Other Measures) Bill 2007 will amend the Migration Act 1958 to address the limitations in the provisions dealing with access to and disclosure of identifying information.

The member for Moreton’s final sentiments certainly were relevant to the bill, and I note his interest in it. Whether it be the member for Petrie at the table or the member for Gorton at the table, every one of us has constituencies that are relevant to migrant communities. Every one of us is sensitive to those communities. Each one of us considers those communities as we deliberate in this House. In fact, there would be no-one in this building now, including those in the gallery, who does not have one person removed from them who migrated to this country. After all, we were all migrants at one time.

This bill is a technical bill identifying information provisions that were inserted into the Migration Act in 2004. They created a scheme for the collection, access and disclosure of personal identifiers in various circumstances. Since the provisions were inserted, some unintended consequences of their operation have been identified and these need to be rectified. While this bill may be seen as making relatively technical changes to the Migration Act, they are nevertheless important amendments. In particular, these amendments will increase the list of permitted grounds for access to and disclosure of identifying information.

While this bill relates to amending the personal identifiers of people moving in and out of this great south land, I think it is appropriate that I take the opportunity to inform the House on the overall commitment this government has to the challenge of border protection and national security. The Howard government has demonstrated a proactive approach to the challenge of border protection and national security since the tragic episodes of 2001 that changed the way we look at the world. It has implemented more than 100 measures and injected funding in excess of $6.7 thousand million to fight terrorism and improve national security.

The 2006 budget built further on this direction by providing over $1.2 thousand million to fund additional national security related measures. This will provide Customs with an additional $7.1 million over three years for improved border controls in South-East Asia, as well as $333 million over the next four years to meet other emerging challenges facing our borders. This includes a new $388.9 million plan to combat illegal foreign fishing in northern Australian waters. The government will also provide $3.9 million over four years to continue the operation of the border protection safeguards system.

With expansions in new technology used by Customs and the Australian Federal Police, efforts are being made to continue to increase border protection measures, implement more efficient processing of passengers and assist in the detection and prevention of terrorism and serious crime. These include the development of one of the world’s toughest aviation security systems to protect Australians and overseas travellers. In total, the Howard government has committed $8.1 thousand million in new spending on national security since 2001-02.

Why is this bill important? The current arrangements are hampering the day-to-day operations of some parts of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship. The current arrangements are also impacting negatively on other agencies in the enforcement of criminal law. It has become clear that there have been some unintended consequences of the access and disclosure provisions which need to be rectified. The provisions impose criminal penalties in relation to the access and disclosure of personal information, unless that access or disclosure is expressly permitted.

The identifying information provisions were inserted into the Migration Act by the Migration Legislation Amendment (Identification and Authentication) Act 2004. The act came into effect in August 2004, creating a scheme for the collection, access, disclosure and storage of identifying information such as signatures, photographs, fingerprints and iris scans. However, it has become apparent that the list of permitted disclosure and access grounds is too limited. The Department of Immigration and Citizenship’s ability to continue normal working practices is being seriously hampered.

The Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions has advised that a number of criminal prosecutions, some for drug importation, have been affected because of the department’s limited ability to provide essential evidence to assist with prosecution. The proposed amendments will introduce a permitted disclosure ground that mirrors the Privacy Act ground of ‘reasonably necessary for the enforcement of criminal law’.

It is important to note that this bill is an omnibus bill which makes amendments to four acts, all of which contain mirror provisions relating to personal identifiers. The amendments are to the Migration Act 1958, the Fisheries Management Act 1991, the Torres Strait Fisheries Act 1994 and the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. The reason for ‘mirroring’ the Migration Act in these three acts really comes down to consistency in how identifying information is collected and dealt with under all four pieces of legislation. It will ensure provisions remain consistent across all four pieces of legislation. Another important note here is that the Privacy Commissioner was consulted throughout the development of the bill.

The reasons for the amendments in schedule 1, personal identifiers, include the fact that the current provisions relating to the access to and disclosure of identifying information are hampering the department’s normal work practices and causing problems for the department and other agencies in the enforcement of the criminal law. The amendments will allow additional circumstances under which the Department of Immigration and Citizenship may disclose identifying information to other government agencies. The key circumstances include, firstly, to prevent or lessen a serious threat to life or death. For example, if the department held a photograph of someone who made a threat against an Australian embassy or high commission, these amendments would allow the department to provide the photograph to the Australian Federal Police, the appropriate security agency or the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to help respond to the threat. In particular, this would assist in identifying the person making the threat and ensuring appropriate safety precautions for staff are undertaken.

The second aspect is to assist the Migration Agents Registration Authority to investigate complaints against migration agents themselves. There is a code of conduct for migration agents in Australia. The code is there to ensure the migration advice profession in Australia maintains high standards and to protect clients from unscrupulous agents. Currently, the department is not allowed to disclose identifying information to assist with an investigation of a migration agent offence unless the non-citizen client has given written consent. Obtaining this written consent can be difficult if the person has returned overseas. This bill will make amendments to ensure the important work of MARA is not stymied because a person who has made a complaint about a migration agent has returned overseas.

The third aspect is when it is reasonably necessary for the enforcement of criminal law. A number of drug importation investigations and prosecutions have been delayed or hampered by the existing arrangements. This new permitted disclosure ground will allow the department to provide identifying information where reasonably necessary for the enforcement of criminal law. The amendment will allow the department to disclose a signed incoming passenger card to the Australian Federal Police and the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions to assist with the investigation and prosecution of drug importation matters. A person’s date of arrival is crucial evidence in these matters, and the department is the caretaker of this information.

The fourth aspect is to permit disclosure if required by or under law. This new disclosure ground will allow the department to provide identifying information in response to a search warrant issued by a state or territory law enforcement agency.

The fifth aspect is where the disclosure is to a Commonwealth, state or territory agency, in order to verify that a person is an Australian citizen or holds a visa of a particular class. This will allow the department to share information it holds on a client with other agencies to verify a person’s status. This is important, for example, to assist someone who is not an Australian citizen to establish their entitlements to Commonwealth or state or territory benefits.

The sixth aspect is to permit disclosure of identifying information to transcription and translation companies. Currently, disclosure of an audio tape of an interview to a transcription company is not a permitted disclosure. Departmental staff have therefore been transcribing and translating many of their own interview tapes. This amendment will allow this activity to be undertaken by professional external transcription companies and allow departmental staff to focus on their key important tasks.

This bill does not seek to amend any of the collection provisions of the Migration Act. Collection of personal identifiers under the Migration Act will still only be permitted if a person is not an Australian citizen. Nor does the bill remove the criminal penalties that are in place if the access and/or disclosure are not permitted.

Schedule 2 deals with authorisations relating to the release of movement records with the department’s movements reconstruction database. These amendments will allow the department to release an individual’s movement records to that person or their appointed agent. Individuals may require their movement records as evidence for health insurance, taxation or other purposes. Because of the way the current provisions operate, an individual must apply for access to this information under the Freedom of Information Act 1982. Access through this process is unnecessarily complex and resource intensive. This amendment will provide the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship with the power to disclose to individuals their own movement records, avoiding the need for them to make an FOI request. This is consistent with the general policy approach that government agencies should facilitate access by an individual to his or her own information.

Schedule 3 is the amendment to the fisheries detention offence. New fisheries offences were created by the Fisheries Legislation Amendment (Foreign Fishing Offences) Act 2006. This is a technical amendment which will ensure that enforcement visas are granted to noncitizens who have been brought to Australia in relation to these new offences.

In closing, I would like to make a few remarks. I would like to congratulate the minister and thank the minister for his cooperation with our backbench policy committee and the party room for the opportunity to scrutinise this bill at length. I congratulate the chairman of that committee, the member for Canning, and the member for Kooyong for their extensive work. I also congratulate the staff who worked with both of those members—staff from the department and from the legal parts of the government. They were receptive and they worked well together. It is a credit to this House and to the systems under which we work that an individual’s privacy and protection are sacred—and they are sacred. They are sacred because we as a parliament go to great lengths to ensure that an individual’s rights and privacy are protected and that they are treated fairly under the law. Whilst these are technical changes, they are important. They have been subjected to close scrutiny by the department and by the members of the backbench committee. The minister should be congratulated for his ability to take into consideration and navigate that fine line between information about privacy and information about the enforcement of criminal law and how that law is executed. The minister and his staff have done an excellent job.

Finally, the immigrant communities of Gippsland, which I represent in part—the member for Gippsland and the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Mr McGauran, and the member for Flinders, Greg Hunt, also represent the area—held a function last Sunday. Don Di Fabrizio and his team decided that they wanted to erect a memorial in recognition of the contribution that immigration has made to Australia. As part of that process last year in Korumburra, the Prime Minister announced that the Commonwealth would assist in funding the memorial. On Sunday in Morwell, in front of many hundreds of people, a beautiful statue and many plaques listing the names of all the immigrants to the Gippsland area were unveiled. It was a huge celebration not only for the Italian community but also for all the immigrants who came to build the infrastructure of the Latrobe Valley that is Gippsland and to create the farming communities. They told me about the first Fergie tractor they got and how they no longer had to milk cows by hand. I know the member for Gorton has a background with these people too, and he knows the area very well.

What an event it was. Minister Kevin Andrews attended the event, and given that he is a former Gippslander he had a lot to say. I know I am digressing from the bill, but we have been talking about these issues particularly, Mr Deputy Speaker, and you are being very kind to me to allow me to digress. When the minister walked in, I was handed a photograph I think of the third grade of the Rosedale Primary school. The minister’s teacher pointed out Kevin Andrews sitting in the back row of the class. She said, ‘And that’s me; I’m the teacher right there.’ The event brought together the various groups that make up the Gippsland area and demonstrated how it came to be. Twenty-six per cent of Australians were not born in this country, but their links become part of our community.

The legislation that we have been talking about has a direct impact on the Gippsland area, particularly around Morwell, Sale and Bairnsdale, down to Korumburra, out to Leongatha, through Moe, Newborough and the surrounding area. The people who changed this country are real; they built this country, grew the crops, established the farms, introduced new initiatives and changed the way we lived and ate.

These are technical bills, and I have outlined the technical aspects. However, it was a privilege to be there when Don Di Fabrizio’s brainchild was finally unveiled by the minister on Sunday. Members have heard the term ‘It’s a great day for the Irish’ but on this occasion it was a great day for the Italians and all of the other communities that attended the celebrations at Morwell. I commend the bill to the House.

Michael Hatton (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am glad to follow the other members who have spoken on the Migration Legislation Amendment (Information and Other Measures) Bill 2007 and, indeed, to endorse the sentiment of the member for McMillan, who has just spoken, about how Australia was built, particularly during the postwar period, by migrant communities. Some of that has been celebrated in recent magnificent films. This legislation is technical, but it also tells a story about this government and our bureaucracies, which have great difficulty determining the difference between privacy law and the Privacy Act and how to deal with certain documents, photographs, iris scans and a whole series of other identifying processes and procedures.

This legislation was initiated in 2004, when a series of changes was introduced regarding disclosure of information and privacy in the immigration area, and 2½ years later we have this amending bill. Day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year for the past 2½ years it has been demonstrated that the measures introduced in 2004 are unworkable. If they were unworkable in 2004, they are unworkable in 2007 and have been unworkable in the intervening years.

A government that was on its game, a government that was not tired, flaccid and weak in its approach, would have been able to rev up the department and say, ‘If there’s a fundamental problem here and if this is so unworkable then fix it and fix it now.’ But that has not happened. Over 2½ years the department has attempted to trawl about in the privacy area and get so embroiled in the technicalities of this legislation that it has not been able to do anything.

It is apparent that prosecutions for drug and fishing offences have not been able to progress properly in the past 2½ years and people have not been brought to justice because this government is tired and old and is not in a position to take its responsibilities seriously enough to fix the problems. It is tired, it is old and its mind is not on the job. It has been 2½ years, Prime Minister. Your ministers had a chance to fix the problem with the bill introduced 2½ years ago. It is only now that this technical bill has been introduced into the House. It is only now that some corrective measures have been taken. When this bill is passed here and in the other place, drug and fisheries prosecutions will be able to go forward. So, while it is technical, this bill tells the story of a tired government, an old government and a government that cannot concentrate on the job at hand or prosecute the legislation that it introduced.

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! It being 2 pm, the debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 97. The debate may be resumed at a later hour and the member will have leave to continue speaking when the debate is resumed.