Philip Ruddock (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Members who know me well know that I have a very strong and personal interest in the plight of refugees, and that is longstanding, long before I ever held any role in relation to immigration and multicultural affairs. In my electorate about one-third of the population is overseas born. Amongst them people from India and China are significant, but there are also many who have come through refugee and humanitarian programs and are from places like Iran, Afghanistan and South Sudan. Many of them have family in perilous situations abroad and seek, under the special humanitarian program, to be able to sponsor relatives.

In 2007-08 there was an expectation that there were some 5,000 special humanitarian visas available. Now, in 2011-12, there are just 714. This is very significant because those who are seeking to sponsor relatives find that they are likely to have to wait, in bona fide cases, very long periods of time before their claims are going to be processed to finality.

In my electorate I have contact with many local individuals, genuine refugees, who, with the support of their local churches and communities, want to be able to make Australia home for their relatives. Their applications in some cases have awaited processing for some years. They are now being told—in the case of an Iranian man recently granted a protection visa—that his wife and children can expect a five- to nine-year waiting period. Why is this the case? I think it is well understood by many people who have settled in Australia—and they say it around Western Sydney—that they came the right way and they cannot understand why priority is being given to those people who have money enough to pay people smugglers and come here without lawful authority, and their claims are dealt with in priority.

There are some particular aspects of government policy that, if addressed, would in my view in part help to address this situation. One of the things that has troubled me enormously has been the fact that we now have a situation where almost anybody who arrives in Australia by boat, without lawful authority, will in fact succeed in a protection visa application. It was not always the case. I think what needs to be understood is why this has changed. It has changed because of deliberate decisions of the government in relation to the way in which decisions are made.

There was an interesting report in the Australian yesterday stating that three-quarters of boat people who appeal their failed asylum claims to the Refugee Review Tribunal are rewarded with permanent residency in Australia. Three-quarters—it suggests that immigration department officials experienced in making decisions as to who is or is not a refugee get it wrong in three-quarters of the cases they are dealing with. It is a preposterous proposition. I believe the reason the tribunal makes the decisions in the numbers of cases it does is that it is easier to say yes than it is to say no, because the department took the decision—or was, I believe, directed by a minister—not to appeal decisions to positively grant a visa to a formerly rejected asylum seeker. The consequence of that is that, when the person who has been rejected appeals the decision and is likely to succeed and the department will never in turn appeal that decision, it is easier for the decision maker to give way and therefore avoid embarrassment. So we have a situation now where 503 departmental decisions from a total of 670 cases heard since July 2012 have been rejected. They join more than 3,200 others, since 2008. If the government changed its policy on this matter— (Time expired)