Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Migration Amendment (Protection of Identifying Information) Bill 2009. The objective of this bill is to better codify current departmental practice in relation to the protection and handling of personal identifiers. These are described in section 5A of the act and include fingerprints or hand prints, measurements of a person’s height and weight, a photograph or other image of a person’s face and shoulders, an audio or video recording of a person’s face, an iris scan, a person’s signature or certain other identifiers prescribed by the regulations. They do not include products such as DNA or blood.

The Migration Act currently provides for a strict regime for the collection, use, access and disclosure of personal identifiers collected under the act. Section 4A describes the department’s obligations in relation to the handling of this information and contains criminal penalties for any breaches. Amendments to the act in 2007 were important. For instance, if the department held a photograph of someone who had made a threat against an Australian high commission or embassy, those amendments allowed the department to provide that photograph to the Australian Federal Police. However, they also had the unintended consequence of the data not being strictly covered by the privacy provisions, as was originally intended. We are told that departmental legal advice has said that personal identifiers collected by other domestic or international agencies and unsolicited external sources and from law enforcement agencies were not fully protected by section 4A of the act. These amendments aim to ensure that they are. So we the coalition support them. The bill ensures that the rights and privacy of people whose personal identifiers are provided by international and external sources are protected under the act and assures our international partners that the data they provide will be given this protection.

It is also extremely important, of course, for individuals whose identifier information is collected. They want to be sure that there is not an extraordinary episode or incident where their photograph is taken to places where knowledge of their whereabouts would endanger them. So it is both for the protection of our own country’s knowledge of the person’s identity and for the individuals themselves that their identifiers are kept strictly private and used only for appropriate purposes. This bill further codifies the handling of personal identifier information and puts beyond doubt the protection of the information.

These amendments in themselves, therefore, are not very remarkable, but the context in which they are to operate remains one of the great challenges for any Australian parliament and for the nation itself. The collection of identifying information, as set out in the Migration Legislation Amendment (Identification and Authentication) Act 2004, was intended to strengthen the capacity of the Australian government and its agencies to ensure, for all passing across our borders, whether as visitors or temporary or permanent residents, that the Australian government could establish their identity and that there was no concern about the accuracy of the information obtained. Labor must realise the coalition’s position in relation to these matters is firmly embedded in our belief that our migration program is a nation-building program, that people who are newly arrived and perhaps susceptible to typecasting or stereotyping should be protected in their identity and not subject to questions about who they are or where they are from and that those people can settle quickly and easily into the broader community and, in time, enjoy the full opportunities that our great nation offers to all.

These are the values that the ALP supported as well at one time in the early nineties. Minister Gerry Hand, a scion of the Left, was a strong proponent of securing the integrity of Australia’s migration programs. The migration integrity measures that have been introduced by the coalition over time or championed by us over the last decade have been about ensuring that no-one in the community can doubt the integrity of our processes of identifying exactly who is coming into our country; what the purpose of their visit is; and whether or not they are suitable to remain in our country, potentially to become new Australian citizens. Everyone in the community needs confidence in that process. These amendments should help, we hope, to build confidence in the process of identifying individuals and giving them a chance to settle into our country with no long-term unresolved issues or concerns hanging over them about where they have come from and why they are here.

We very strongly believe that there should be proper investment in identifying technologies. There is a whole range of new ways, particularly more recently, in which biometrics can be used. It is also important that we have a strong database which is shared between agencies so that we are able to establish if someone has been to our country before and has been required to leave, for whatever reason. We need to be able to establish quickly, when someone arrives, if they are known to international agencies for any activities that we would not welcome in our country. So I urge the government to look at the latest technology in personal identifiers to ensure that we are not left behind in the business of establishing who someone is or whether they have already been dealt with by international agencies or other countries and there are concerns about their character.

We recently had the Joint Standing Committee on Migration’s report No. 2 tabled. It looked at future options for additional community based detention alternatives. I did not support all of the recommendations as a member of that committee. The recommendations made in this report included that people be given access to the community before the government has fully completed its identification process. That may involve their security status, their identity or, indeed, even their health status. The recommendations of the report were that a person should be fast-tracked as quickly as possible into the community and be placed into a bridging visa framework where they could have work rights and support from Medicare and from Centrelink if required if they could not find work.

My concern in opposing those recommendations and writing a minority report was that it is far better for this government to put every effort into completing the process of identifying an asylum seeker, for example, and establishing if that person does in fact have a claim to full and adequate protection in our country, rather than fast-tracking them, half-processed, into the community, where they might languish for quite some time as this government deals with more and more arrivals coming via the people smugglers. My concern and the coalition’s concern is for resources to be put upfront into comprehensively and completely identifying an individual coming to our country without documentation, typically to seek asylum, and for that process to be completed as quickly as possible so as to make time in detention the absolute minimum required. That person could then be welcomed into our community as a refugee, or quickly required to exit the country if their claim has been false and they are not in fact a legitimate asylum seeker. That is why the identifier technologies are so important and the legislation dealing with the privacy and confidentiality of that information is so important. That is why we are supporting wholeheartedly this particular set of amendments.

I have to say that we in Australia have had some unfortunate episodes in our history of wrong identification. After the Second World War it was found that people had come to this country who were war criminals. They should never have been allowed to remain, or to have come in the first instance, but of course information flow and international cooperation on identification were different in those days. We need to make sure that our country, as far as possible, never gives sanction and protection to a person who should never expect to be welcomed into a freedom-loving place like Australia.

Recommendation 10 in the Joint Standing Committee on Migration report No. 2—the report I have just referred to—said in relation to bridging visa holders:

The Committee recommends that the Australian Government reform the bridging visa framework to grant all adults on bridging visas permission to work, conditional on compliance with reporting requirements and attendance at review and court hearings.

I repeat: we would much rather see the efforts of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship put into completing identification and establishing a person’s right to asylum upfront, not having a halfway house, given that we heard a great deal of evidence about the problems of people without adequate English, without recent work experience and without qualifications that are acceptable in Australia trying to find work in the Australian community with limited support while they await a final outcome on their status being established as asylum seekers. We are concerned that this government has not put the effort that is needed into teaching English to these new arrivals and new settlers; in fact, the budget has been slashed for the Adult Migrant English Program. That is to be deplored. We are also concerned that there has not been appropriate support in the budget for accommodation for new settlers, particularly through the community care program. As a nation we should be fully responsible and caring about people who come to our shores seeking protection and a better life and who, under the UNHCR criteria, more than deserve that protection.

These amendments are welcomed by the opposition. We understand that they are important and necessary due to the unintended impacts of amendments that were made three or four years ago. It is of critical concern to individuals who are fearful for their lives and seeking to come to Australia that their personal information be kept strictly confidential. On the other hand, it is essential that overseas agencies have confidence in our system so that they supply all information we request with confidence and wholehearted cooperation, knowing that we have in place proper instruments of protection for that data.

We know that there were over 25,700,000 movements across our borders in the last financial year. That is an enormous number of individuals coming and going across our borders, both by sea and by air. That is to be applauded. Long may we see that movement of visitors, tourists, students, potential future settlers and spouses. We are proud and we should be proud of the fact that we have open borders and we are a welcoming nation. However, our capacity to correctly identify all of those individuals is absolutely necessary. It is a huge task. It requires the latest, best and most effective technology and it requires a department not too stressed in terms of its own staff numbers and financial resources; otherwise it cannot do a proper job. We are concerned that there is now a requirement for a contraction of nearly 800 Department of Immigration and Citizenship staff. There is also, of course, a huge contraction of the department’s budget itself. We are concerned that they are too hard pressed to do the job of processing these over 25 million movements which occurred in one financial year—that is the information that DIAC gave us in Senate estimates very recently.

The ALP had seven immigration ministers in their years in government and seven shadow ministers for immigration while in opposition. The Labor Party’s commitment to long-term engagement with the immigration portfolio is therefore somewhat of a rolling feast. We have to hope that, with the most recent turnover—with a new minister for home security and with the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Senator Evans, having the enormous task of leading the Senate—the Labor government does start to take the immigration portfolio seriously. It is to do with nation building. It is to do with the security of our nation. It is to do with ensuring a good quality of life for all of those who seek to live in our great nation. We are a nation of immigrants. In my own family two sons-in-law and a daughter-in-law are all immigrants. One is from a refugee background. I am proud of the way they have made extraordinary contributions to this nation as Australians in addition to the fact that they have provided me with eight grandchildren.

It was a concern when the former ALP president Barry Jones wondered out loud about Labor’s mismanagement of the migration program during its years in office before. He said that the focus of the Labor government was to build up a long-term political constituency rather than to be looking at the broader issues of continuing a fair and proper migration program which gave us one of the most multicultural, multiracial and tolerant societies on earth. It is a concern that the Parliamentary Secretary for Multicultural Affairs and Settlement Services has already been found to have been directing grants from the migration portfolio budget to his electorate. The Auditor-General had words to say about that in a recent report.

When it comes to government, the coalition took decisive action to rebuild the national security of the country. It took decisive and firm but very fair approaches to make sure that we reinstated our migration program as objective and evenhanded. We also made extraordinary efforts to give temporary safe haven to those from East Timor and to those who were caught up in the Balkan wars. They were experiments, in a sense. These short-term safe haven visas had not been offered before. We learned from that experience.

However, we do have great concern, not having been given enough information, over exactly what this government intends with the introduction of what it calls a new complementary visa. We need to know exactly what is in mind. It is not good enough to have in front of the House, with just a few hours or less notice, the reading of a ministerial speech describing what that complementary visa status will mean to a person in Australia achieving that status. I ask that this government take the opposition more seriously by informing the opposition of exactly what it does intend if it is going to introduce another category of protection visa. It may be that this is a good move; it may be, though, that it is just another way to clog up the courts, the Refugee Review Tribunal and the Migration Review Tribunal with vexatious claims. No-one needs that.

It is of great concern to the Department of Immigration and Citizenship public service that there are over 900 cases outstanding in the courts at the moment to do with migration. It is amazing to see that Minister Evans has intervened in over 1,000 cases since he took office. In other words, he has overturned Refugee Review Tribunal and Migration Review Tribunal decisions in over 1,000 episodes. This is a rate never before seen with any minister for migration in an Australian government. We need to know this: has the minister lost faith in the workings and outcomes of the Migration Review Tribunal and the Refugee Review Tribunal? Of course, these overturns also include court decisions. These 1,000 overturns of decisions would seem—and we are still trying to get the full data as to how many cases were dealt with—to be running at 25 per cent of all the cases brought before the minister. Previous levels of overturns have been in the order of three to five per cent by ministers like Philip Ruddock and between two and three per cent by Robert Ray and other Labor ministers. So this 25 per cent rate of decisions being overturned does need very careful explanation and investigation. We in the opposition are attempting to unravel the mystery because there are very significant implications if the minister has lost faith in the working of the two tribunals.

It is very important that the minister’s use of his interventionary powers are transparent and accountable, given that in public statements the minister himself questioned the interventionary powers of the immigration minister—the powers which have gone with the minister since Labor introduced interventionary powers back in the early 1990s. We need to know about that because it goes to the heart of the integrity of our migration system, particularly in our asylum seeker determinations. Our asylum-seeking processing must be fair and transparent and the minister of the day needs to be accountable. The Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Senator Evans, himself said that he wondered whether a minister could be fair in exercising his interventionary powers. So, when we discover this extraordinary rate of tribunal decisions being overturned, we are very curious about what is going on.

This brings me back to the bill. This is all part of having a migration policy and program which has integrity and the confidence of the nation. We are a nation of migration. All Australians—unless you are an Indigenous Australian—are from a migrant background. We have built the most stunning, tolerant, multicultural and multiracial nation. It had shaky beginnings, because Federation was very much founded on a White Australia policy. It was the Labor Party and trade unions who were most concerned at the turn of the 20th century about coloured labour lowering work conditions and pay. It was Robert Menzies who began the first unravelling of the White Australia policy, which culminated in Prime Minister Harold Holt dismantling the White Australia policy in 1966.

We are proud of the Liberal Party’s legacy of doing away with that racist policy, which was a shameful part of Australian history. I think of my Chinese-Australian son-in-law and that if he had been born in the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s or 1950s he could not have lived in this great country and I could not have had my beautiful Eurasian grandchildren. We are an interesting country which other nations look upon with awe and respect. Our refugee policies and the resources that we put into new settlement are respected and applauded by other nations. Along with the USA and Canada, Australia does the most heavy lifting in permanently resettling those who are most in need of our protection as refugees—as identified by the UNHCR—from the hellholes of the world. We have 13½ thousand people to come to Australia under our humanitarian refugee program and I applaud Labor in continuing our commitment to putting special effort into settling refugees and humanitarian settlers.

My own electorate of Murray is the most multicultural and multiracial of any regional electorate in Australia. We have some of the biggest numbers of refugees, particularly from the Middle East, in our electorate. We welcome every one of those. We also welcome the first regional settlement pilot undertaken in Australia, where we took the newly arrived Congolese families straight from the airport to Shepparton to settle them into a community which had been preparing for their arrival for six months. That Congolese community is a stunning example of how Australia opens its arms to families, most of them with more than eight or nine children. Two days ago two individuals from that Congolese community attended Parliament House as part of the Fairley Leadership group. This is a community leadership program which selects from applicants those who are most interested and likely to become community leaders. Amongst them were two of our Congolese refugees who are taking community leadership positions in the Goulburn Valley communities. We had one of our refugees from the Congo stand for local government in the most recent Greater Shepparton City Council election. We have another of our Congolese men in the process of becoming a justice of the peace. For years these people had been in war zones in Africa and we can only imagine the difficulties and the suffering that the wars inflicted on them.

We are a great nation, but we have to make sure our systems have integrity and are properly resourced. We have to make sure that those in the public sector who administer our various programs have high morale and are committed to the work they do. They should not have to fear that the slashing of resources and contraction in numbers will make it impossible to do the task at hand. I commend this set of amendments. The coalition support the amendments because we do not want to see a single individual suffer as a result of their personal information falling into the wrong hands. We also do not want the processing of a person’s personal information so that they can be properly identified and their status properly established to take any longer than is necessary, because we are not properly using or protecting identifying information. We support this bill and I commend it to the House.

Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to speak on the Migration Amendment (Protection of Identifying Information) Bill 2009. The bill is an important part of the government’s streamlining of the Australian migration system. It is designed to create a system that better serves the needs of Australia’s society and Australia’s economy while treating migrants and those who wish to come to this country with fairness and dignity. In his second reading speech last month my good friend the Parliamentary Secretary for Multicultural Affairs and Settlement Services, the member for Reid, explained the reasons we are introducing this bill. The bill seeks to fix a problem which has arisen with the legislation that was passed by the previous government in 2004. I do not seek to make a political point about that. This is a complex area of policy and it is not always possible to foresee all the consequences of any piece of legislation. To paraphrase the honourable member for Warringah—’stuff happens’.

I do note, however, that when the bill was debated the then shadow minister, the member for Gellibrand, now Minister for Health and Ageing, did raise some concerns about the operation of the scheme that the previous government was setting up. Problems have indeed now arisen with that piece of legislation and this bill is designed to fix them.

The purpose of the Migration Legislation Amendment (Identification and Authentication) Act 2004 was to create a new regime for the collection, use, access and disclosure of personal identifiers collected by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship under the Migration Act 1958. It was a recognition that identity theft and identity crime are an increasing problem for governments all over the world and that this is particularly a problem for governments in the field of migration. Labor supported this objective in opposition and we are consistent in supporting it in government. This government is determined to protect the security of Australia’s borders and the integrity of our immigration system. Both as a matter of security and as a matter of immigration policy, it is important that we know that people coming to this country as immigrants, visitors, businesspeople, family members or students are who they say they are. Just as those who steal and fake identities are becoming more sophisticated in their operations, we must be more sophisticated in our response.

But it is also important that personal data collected from people entering Australia be kept confidential and that there be no possibility of it being misused. That is, of course, how identity theft works—by misusing someone else’s personal data, whether it is their date of birth, their fingerprints, their credit card number or their signature. Australians, unfortunately, are increasingly aware, particularly, of the abuse of credit card theft by other people. I think that is probably the fact that is uppermost in the public consciousness at the moment, but it is a problem in other areas as well, particularly in a serious area like immigration.

It is the responsibility of government to prevent that, and we are taking this responsibility seriously. The problem that has arisen is that there is a technical incompatibility between the 2004 act and some other pieces of legislation, which means that it is not as clear as it should be that all personal information collected from people dealing with the Department of Immigration and Citizenship is fully protected regardless of who actually collects the data or whether it is collected inside or outside Australia. In order to redress this problem, to ensure that the rights and privacy of such people are protected under the act and to assure our international partners that the data they provide us will be given this protection, it is necessary to make sure that all personal information collected by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship for these purposes is covered by the same statutory regime—namely, part 4A of the act. This bill will bring the definition of identifying information in the act into line with the original policy intention of 2004 that all personal data obtained by, or on behalf of, the department is protected by part 4A of the act.

As the Parliamentary Secretary for Multicultural Affairs and Settlement Services, the member for Reid, pointed out, it is important that this matter be dealt with quickly. There are criminal penalties associated with unauthorised disclosure, modification, impairment or failure to destroy identifying information when required. Any loophole in our law can be exploited by criminal elements who may want to evade or subvert our border protection system. They include identity thieves, people smugglers, potential terrorists, drug runners and those who traffic in illegal sex workers. Any such loopholes must be closed as quickly as possible.

And here I want to give some context to these measures. This is not seen by the current government as some hysterical problem that we have to react to as a result of vast numbers of boat people. To hear the opposition talk over the last few months, one would have thought not that 350 people had arrived by boat to be dealt with by Australian immigration authorities but that there had been 350 boats full of people who were unauthorised arrivals. We have measured and considered immigration policy. This government is not hysterical, as the previous government was, about unauthorised arrivals, and the current minister has obviously taken a measured and intelligent way of responding to the few boats that have arrived.

I must say that I was surprised by the member for Murray’s description of recommendation 10 of the second report on immigration detention from the committee which I chair and by her discussion about whether people should be released into the community or not. Of course, what she did not mention was the fact that the report had taken evidence that people kept in immigration detention—about whom there was no dispute that ultimately they would be identified and who were no security risk to Australia—had suffered by being kept in detention for many years and months, as had happened under the previous Australian government. That was a balancing factor that the committee took into consideration when making its recommendation.

This bill is further evidence that the Labor government is determined to protect Australia’s borders and the integrity of our migration system while also safeguarding the rights of all individuals who come in contact with that system. It shows once again the falsity of claims made by some members opposite that Australia’s border protection has in some way been softened or weakened under this current government. The member for Murray said that the previous government’s policy on immigration was widely considered as objective and even-handed. I must say that that is not a perception in the community that I have picked up over the years. In the context of speaking on these justified measures about identification and making sure that acts of parliament enable the Department of Immigration and Citizenship to deal with this properly, this government has not had a hysterical attitude to boat refugees coming to Australia. It has not been involved in disgraceful events like that of the Tampa, and to describe the migration policy and the refugee policy of the previous government as ‘objective’ and ‘even-handed’—as the member for Murray, the opposition spokesperson on immigration, did—is certainly in a context that is completely illegitimate in my view and, I think, in the view of the majority of the Australian people on this very important bill.

Let us stay measured and balanced. Let us protect the integrity of Australia’s migration system and let us welcome refugees when they do come here. Let us judge them properly. Let us release them into the community if there is no problem about their identification. If the information about their identification is ultimately going to come and if there is no worry about their security, it is much better for people be under a bridging visa than to be locked up in detention for months and years. If there is no threat to the Australian community—apart from the cost to the Australian community—they may as well be out in the general community earning a living under the bridging visa proposals that were proposed in the report of the Joint Standing Committee on Migration. I commend these bills on the integrity of the migration system to the House.

Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Migration Amendment (Protection of Identifying Information) Bill 2009. There is no doubt that the issue of migration and the wider issues of refugees, illegal immigrants and boat people are a debate this parliament needs to have, what with the recent surge in boat people. Notwithstanding that the push factors have not substantially changed globally, and considering the recent surge, this is a debate the nation needs to have. It is a debate that should be carried out with great compassion but with a firm resolve to represent the best interests of our nation. Let us not forget we are a young nation, just over 200 years old; we are a nation of immigrants. Some reports suggest that over 25 per cent of Australian citizens were born overseas. We are one of the great nations of immigrants. Our diversity is what gives us strength, it is what pulls our communities together and we need to do everything possible to ensure a strong sense of integration with all people who come to our nation—a strong sense of shared values and of shared commitment to our nation, its direction and its future. And it is in this context that I wish to raise some comments in supporting the migration legislation amendment bill.

The objective is to amend the Migration Act 1958 to ensure that identifying information obtained by the department or provided to the department by other external and domestic agencies is better protected and governed by part 4A of the act. The Migration Act currently provides for a strict regime for the collection, use, access and disclosure of personal identifiers collected under the act. Part 4A describes the department’s obligations in relation to the handling of this information and, of course, contains a range of criminal penalties for any breaches. Amendments to the act in 2004 and 2007 unfortunately had the unintended consequence of limiting the provisions as they were originally intended. It would appear the departmental legal advice has said that personal identifiers collected by other agencies may not now be fully protected by part 4A of the act—clearly an unintended consequence. So this bill seeks to ensure that the rights and privacy of people whose personal identifiers are provided by external sources, including international agencies, are protected under the act and to ensure that the data our foreign and domestic partners provide to us will also be provided this protection. Furthermore, the bill codifies the handling of personal identifier information and puts beyond doubt the protection of the information. The amendments are therefore not contentious.

However, the context in which these amendments operate is far from simple. The amendments go to the heart of the integrity of our migration, immigration and refugee-handling policy. The collection of information set out in the Migration Legislation Amendment (Identification and Authentication) Act 2004 was designed to ensure that all migrants from any country arriving in this great nation, whether they are coming permanently to settle or temporarily to visit, do not pose any threat to Australia and her interests, that people coming to our great nation come here for the right reasons—that is, they come here to join in and celebrate our democracy; that they come here with the intention of taking on our shared values; and, importantly, that when they arrive, be they temporarily arriving or coming permanently, they are who they say they are. The first rule for any country is to know who is in it, and indeed for those coming here to know who they are as well. Our entire migration and immigration system hangs off this concept of integrity.

We are a nation of immigrants, a nation built on the backs of those who have come here seeking a better life. And why wouldn’t you? Australia is one of the greatest nations on earth and, as the member for Fadden, I simply say that Fadden, with the glorious beaches of the Gold Coast and the great broad water and hinterland, is one of the greatest places in one of the greatest countries on earth. So why wouldn’t people want to come here? And, because our nation is built on the hard work, the sweat, the tears and the blood of those who have come, they are indeed welcome. But the integrity of that system that brings them here is fundamental. Let us not forget that on 25 April 1915, when the Anzacs so heroically charged the beaches of Anzac Cove, many of them had not been born in Australia. They were migrants, yet they had adopted Australia as their own. They were willing to fight, and so many of them died, for that adopted country. It is why this debate must be held with great resolve but also great compassion.

Our migration program has always been a nation-building program—a true one in all senses, not just in words. The Department of Immigration and Citizenship estimates that a person comes or goes from our shores every second. That is a staggering number. The department said in Senate estimates that there were more than 25 million movements in the last financial year—an astonishing number of people coming and going. And our capacity to correctly identify these people and to ensure they have an entitlement to be here is imperative not only to our national security but also to our community harmony.

People are free in our country. When people arrive on our shores, holidaying or voluntarily, they are free to roam right across this grand continent. There are no police checks. There is no border security. There are no gates and bars. People are free. The only check we have is on our borders, hence the integrity of that checking mechanism is fundamental. We absolutely insist on a strong framework of checks and balances.

I join the shadow minister in not supporting some of the recommendations of the Joint Standing Committee on Migration report No. 2 into future options for additional community based detention alternatives. As she quite rightly pointed out, a number of these recommendations patently fail the integrity test. The recommendations will be seen as further softening of this government’s response to people smugglers. Although the push factors globally have not changed significantly, though the government would like to tell us they have, upwards of 20 illegal vessels have come to our shores in the last 18 months. The undoubtable conclusion is a softening of policy. I cannot support a new bridging framework, because it does not deter the abhorrence that is people smugglers. Recommendations Nos 2, 3 and 8 describe the view of the majority of the committee that unlawful noncitizens be diverted out of detention before their security and health identification status check is complete. I say with great compassion that this is completely and utterly unsupportable. It is absolute nonsense to suggest that before we know exactly who someone is, what their background is, what their criminal record is and what threat they may possibly pose to community, we are happy to release them into a free society where they can move around unencumbered.

These ex-detainees are to be transferred into the community within a bridging visa framework which entitles them to a basic range of basic income assistance, health care, temporary accommodation and furnishing requirements under recommendation No. 8. Recommendation No. 10 refers to a proposal that these bridging visa holders will also have a range of full working rights. All this will happen before we know who they are. Are we prepared to say to the employers of our nation: ‘There are a range of people who have just been released from detention on a bridging visa, and we actually don’t know their full background but we are happy for you to employ them’? Are we prepared to accept that risk? Is that appropriate due diligence for our nation? Are we taking appropriate care of Australian citizens by allowing this to occur? Are we prepared for the repercussions of a dreadful incident—a heinous crime—occurring because we failed in our responsibility in releasing people into the community before knowing fully their history and their background?

The fact is that most detainees do not stay for an extended period of time in secure detention. All detention centres are now either upgraded or in the process of being upgraded. The committee I referred to actually took evidence on 1 May that 47 per cent of stays in detention were for less than one month and 72.1 per cent of the stays were for periods of less than three months. Even processing times for the recent massive surge in boat people are being shortened. One of the more substantial issues that should be included in the debate we have to have, is on the 1951 refugee convention and the 1967 protocol. Our immigration program is one of the most generous in the world. Over the last 50 years this great nation has settled, on average, 12,000 people a year through our humanitarian program. Some commentators are saying that we are the most generous nation in our humanitarian program, per capita, on the planet outside of Canada. Whilst I cannot substantiate the numbers, I can stand here confidently and stay that we would at least be in the top five most generous nations. We should be proud of that. Australians should be proud of their generosity in helping those from some of the most dreadful and unfortunate circumstances across the globe.

I am one of the international directors of Watoto, one of the largest non-institutional orphan care programs in Uganda and Africa, with over 2,000 children we have picked up from the pit latrines and the garbage tins of the world. I have seen first hand the horror of the Third World, and the generosity of our humanitarian program is something we should all rejoice in. It is something we should be incredibly proud of. Yet, within that and within the work I do on a humanitarian basis, I remain firmly of the conviction that we should continue to decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come. The only thing we have is a strong sense of policy, and this has been watered down.

Let us look at the signatories from the 1951 convention between us and Afghanistan—between us and half the world away: Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyszstan, Tajikistan Turkmenistan, Yemen and Cambodia—

Laurie Ferguson (Reid, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Multicultural Affairs and Settlement Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What about the other side of Afghanistan?

Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is it. Those are all the countries that have signed. Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia and all of the countries in between—countries that are notorious for hopping of illegal immigrants—have not signed. There seems to be little indication within these countries’ policy platforms that they will. Considering that so many intermediate countries have not signed the convention, and all indications are they may not, we only have one stand—and that is policy. The Howard government introduced a very strong border protection mechanism and policy framework, which included Operation Resolute with the use of our military and Customs planes. Even then, with the great compassionate nature of this nation, we brought back for processing those found on the high seas. Thus, the only thing we have to rest on is a strong sense of policy. And I see that being watered down at every step.

I would encourage the government to move away from looking to self-aggrandisement on the United Nations scene and instead to look to some tangible results—to look at a new framework for the 1951 convention, to revisit it and encourage other countries to sign up and to look at ways that we can encourage the rest of the world to come on board and accept their humanitarian responsibilities in assisting those in need. Until such time as the 1951 convention and its associated protocol is redefined to include the rest of the world and until such time as the rest of the world is encouraged to accept its responsibilities, all we have is policy—nothing more, nothing less. Strong policy combined with the strongest possible integrity in our migration and refugee system is needed. I commend the bill, I commend this strength of integrity, I commend the government to accept the need for the strongest possible policy and I ask the government to review its policy positions and to strengthen them, as that is the only weapon we have against the great surge of boat people.

Laurie Ferguson (Reid, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Multicultural Affairs and Settlement Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

in reply—I thank members for their contributions to the debate on the Migration Amendment (Protection of Identifying Information) Bill 2009. The bill provides the appropriate framework for handling personal identifiers in the future. The Migration Legislation Amendment (Information and Other Measures) Act 2007 made an amendment to the definition of identifying information in paragraph 336A so that identifying information became any personal identifier provided under sections 40, 46, 166, 170, 175, 188, 192 or 261AA of the act. However, these amendments to the definition in 2007 made these provisions more limited than the original policy intended.

Recent legal advice suggests that personal identifiers belonging to the department’s clients that are not currently protected by part 4A include those collected from other agencies, domestic or international, unsolicited external sources and law enforcement agencies, often shared with the department as part of an investigation. In relation to these personal identifiers, DIAC has been adhering to part 4A of the Migration Act 1958 and the Privacy Act 1988 where applicable so there is no question of either act being breached. In order to ensure that the rights and privacy of persons whose personal identifiers are provided by international external sources are protected under the act, and to assure our Australian and international partners that the data they provide will be given this protection, this bill will subject all personal identifiers collected by DIAC for immigration purposes to the same statutory regime, that being part 4A of the act.

I now turn to some of the contributions by members. The member for Fadden might be quite knowledgeable about how Logan City and Redcliffe went in the Queensland Rugby League results last weekend, but I do not think he has the same level of knowledge about immigration or international events. He made the outrageous comment that there were no push factors in immigration at the moment. He would also probably be telling us that there were no elections in Iran last week and that there was no swing to the Right in the European elections. With such a perfunctory lack of knowledge in this area, he would not be able to comment on any of these matters. Most of the Australian population has picked up that the civil strife in Sri Lanka has come to a bloody conclusion. Most people are aware that for weeks on end there were massive attacks in the north of Sri Lanka on the remaining Tamil Tiger heartlands and that large numbers of civilians were killed in the process. But, according to the member for Fadden, there is no big push, there is no big change in Sri Lanka and there will be no Tamils wanting to come to Australia. It has not happened!

Seemingly, the member for Fadden does not think that NATO and other international bodies know anything about Afghanistan. He seems to think that it is all quite calm and peaceful there and that there were no controversies recently about changes made by the Karzai government on women’s rights. Apparently, I did not see an interview with an Afghan women’s representative on TV this week—it did not happen! According to the member for Fadden, it is very peaceful, there are no measures disturbing anyone in the world and we will pull out next week. It is all over and there are no problems! That is a major insult to a delegation of Hazaras I met here the last time we were in parliament. They came to indicate the very serious pressures on their community. Hazaras have historically been persecuted by whatever regime is in power in Afghanistan, whether it is the former royal family, the current administration or the Taleban. The Hazaras have been a minority subject to pressures for quite some time. The delegation I met raised very clear problems confronting their community, and this is before we start talking about all of the other regional and tribal issues that confront Afghanistan. They raised issues such as the increased pressures the Iranian regime has brought to bear on the Shi’ite confreres of the Iranians—the Hazaras and other Shi’ites who have fled to Iran—to make them leave the country.

According to the member for Fadden, all the Iraqi Christians can just walk back to Baghdad tomorrow afternoon with no problems. I think the Assyrian community in Western Sydney would be very surprised by the analysis by the member for Fadden that there are no push factors leading to refugees wanting to come to this country. According to the member for Fadden, it is all very nice out there and there are no problems. This is preposterous. It was a major embarrassment to the opposition spokesperson in this area. I do not think she would have the effrontery to go anywhere near the kinds of suggestions that the member for Fadden has made.

The UNHCR global trends report showed 42 million forcibly displaced people worldwide at the end of 2008, a figure which included 15.2 million refugees. A staggering 44 per cent of all refugees and asylum seekers were children under the age of 18. I also note a very significant presence of people in our part of the world. Roughly one-third of refugees at the end of 2007 were residing in the Asia Pacific region, with 80 per cent of these being Afghans, yet the number of boat arrivals in Australia remained low by world standards. We have the comfort of being where we are in the world. The member for Fadden talks about the lack of signatories in this region. That is very true. One thing on which I agree with him is the need for international pressure to increase the number of signatories to UN conventions in our region—there is no doubt about that. But, compared to the Europeans, we have the comfort of being very distant when it comes to boat arrivals. You only have to look at the measures that Italy has been forced to undertake in the last few years with Libya to try to negotiate some reduction. This has led to xenophobia and racism in northern Europe. Countries such as the Scandinavian nations, which never had these problems before, are swinging towards political conservatism, racism and even neo-Nazism because of the huge pressures.

I think we should get these things in a bit of perspective. We should get rid of this rhetoric that there are no problems out there and the boats are just a reflection of some change in government policy. This is preposterous; it is ridiculous. It manipulates the Australian people. It gives them a false sense of confidence that, if there are few hardline laws, then we will not have a problem. We do have a problem, and that is why in the budget this year $1.3 billion has been devoted to strengthening Australia’s border protection and national security regime, and $654 million of that is specifically dedicated to a whole-of-government—that is, interdepartmental—strategy to combat people-smuggling. Even when we are bringing in laws in regard to detention debts this week, we single out people-smugglers as a group of people to which we will not be showing the same consideration in regard to those detention debts as we will be showing to other people who have been detained. The member for Fadden’s contribution was disturbing and ill-informed—he really should stick to Rugby League and Aussie Rules commentary.

I want to now turn to some comments made by the shadow minister for immigration. She referred to a National Audit Office report in regard to my handling of settlement grants. I think we should put that kind of comment in the context of the momentary, perfunctory interest in this matter by the opposition in estimates. The senator who handled this matter, Senator Fierravanti-Wells, asked a few perfunctory questions, made a few snide comments and left it there. It solicited one bit of interest in the media.

I want to make the point that my electorate just happens to be an electorate that has heavy migration. It is an electorate where half the population were born overseas. As the member for Fadden noted, the Australian average is about 25 per cent. Half of the people that live with me in Reid were born outside this country, and 75 per cent of those are from non-English-speaking countries. My electorate is either the first or the second in regard to Arabic speakers, Muslim Australians and Chinese Australians. It is heavily characterised by new arrival communities, the suburb of Auburn particularly being characterised by a high Iraqi Shia population. Afghans are spread throughout suburbs such as Harris Park. This might surprise the shadow minister, but there are significant settlement grants in my electorate. I should also advise her that this year the electorate lost three of those longstanding grants. I note that the audit report singled out the department for criticism in regard to paperwork. As I said, the opposition showed its disdain and disinterest in these matters during the estimates process.

I note that one of the four grants that were questioned by the national audit report was questioned after the very persuasive intervention of the member for McMillan, who directed to my attention the secondary movement of Sudanese to the Gippsland region. This is a very dangerous area for the opposition to tread on. Probably the biggest scandal in Australian immigration in regard to visas was the Kisrwani case. I would advise the shadow minister to take a bit more interest in that history.

We have the rhetoric that accompanies this of her family’s Chinese connections and the Congolese council candidate, and I have seen her make some very impressive speeches. I praise the multiculturalism and the Chinese events in Sydney. However, this rhetoric, these speeches, in home-ground venues where it is good to mouth these kinds of slogans, must be accompanied by the reality of policy. I know that the shadow minister did go to the opposition ministry with a proposal to support the government on detention debt and was rolled. We must give her some credit for waging that fight. But to come in here and try to connect the very necessary changes in regard to detention with apprehension, scaring people and the waves of people that the member for Fadden accompanied her speech with is really disturbing.

I want to say again, for the member for Fadden, who seems to be styling himself as some sort of expert in this field, that the second report does nothing about the question of unlawful noncitizens. It does not say that they should be released from detention before health, security and identity checks. This is why we do detain people for a period of time—so we can have these checks. We do not detain them as a punishment. We do not detain them for criminal purposes. We detain them to take these checks. I am contacted every day of my week by people in my electorate who are waiting for six months for their spouses to enter this country because of security checks by ASIO. If anything, they are taking too long in regard to this processing. So there is nothing that says we have an open door, that we are not checking people—of course we are. Where we differ is on the question of whether children should be detained and whether people should be shown compassion or basically be condemned to very long periods of detention for no real public policy purpose—just to assure people with some subliminal message that we are protecting them from terrorism, implying at least some of these people who have come by boat are terrorists. This is, as I say, a false premise. It is aimed at alarming people. It really gives no practical support. It simply creates an illusion.

As I said, we have seen today an opposition that is floundering to in some way justify the Howard legacy in this area after having repudiated it to some degree. They basically see some opportunities because we have a very strong push factor in regard to refugee claims throughout the world at the moment. We face very grave difficulties in a lot of regions of the world in regard to refugee claims. Indisputably, people are going to seek protection around the world. To try and tie the number of boats in with changes in government policy in this country is absolutely ridiculous.

We have seen also of course that, despite all the rhetoric of the government, somebody sitting around Indonesia for a large number of years with nothing being done to return him to Australia. It is this government that is effectively prosecuting him and driving home against that individual allegations in regards to people-smuggling. I want to again commend this bill to the House. The member for Melbourne Ports, who takes a deep interest in immigration matters, has very adequately covered the provisions of this bill.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.