Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Migration Amendment (Character Cancellation Consequential Provisions) Bill 2016. This bill makes a number of amendments which are consequential to the Migration Amendment (Character and General Visa Cancellation) Act 2014. Labor supported that act through this House and through the parliament. The 2014 act was designed to strengthen the existing character and general visa cancellation provisions within the Migration Act to ensure that noncitizens who commit crimes in Australia and pose a risk to the Australian community, or represent an integrity concern, are appropriately considered for visa refusal or cancellation. It also introduced a mandatory cancellation power for noncitizens who failed to pass an objective character test. That test is deemed to be met if a person has served a custodial sentence of a minimum of 12 months or has committed a serious crime such as child sex offences.

The purpose of the bill before us today is to make consequential amendments to those that I have just outlined so that character related provisions are dealt with consistently throughout the Migration Act. Specifically, this bill does that in three broad ways. The first is to amend the definition of the term 'character concern' to make it consistent with the definitions contained within the character test as amended by the 2014 act. In that way, it will ensure that existing information disclosure provisions are consistent across the Migration Act with regard to the character test. The second general area of consequential amendments relates to section 501BA of the Migration Act. In that respect, this bill deals with decisions made under that provision, which relates to the minister's power to override a decision of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal or a delegate and cancel a person's visa on character grounds. It is a particular type of decision that the minister makes in relation to the character test. The purpose of a series of amendments found in the current bill is to ensure that decisions of that kind, made under section 501BA, are treated in a consistent way with other decisions that the minister makes in respect of character test visa cancellations.

The final group of amendments relates to section 501CA of the Migration Act. This is another sort of decision that the minister makes in relation to character test visa cancellations—specifically, the minister's power to reinstate a person's visa that was cancelled under the mandatory cancellation provision. Again, the purpose of these consequential amendments is to ensure that a decision of that kind is treated in a consistent way across the Migration Act with those other decisions that the minister may make, in relation to cancelling or dealing with a person's visa in respect of character-test grounds.

Labor supports these amendments. They are technical in nature, but they are a faithful set of amendments which provide consistency, consequential to the bill, that Labor supported when it went through this parliament in 2014. Having said that, it is becoming clear that the government is utilising ministerial discretion to cancel visas on character grounds to a greater extent than was the case under the former Labor government. The cancellation of a person's visa on character grounds is, clearly, a sensitive issue. It has to be done on a case-by-case basis, because we are talking about a different story in respect of each individual. So, I think that, all that can be said from the point of view of Labor in respect of the use of ministerial discretion in this regard, is that we will maintain a close regard, in terms of how the minister is using his discretionary powers but, that, if, in fact, what we are seeing is a toughening up of the system in relation to this, that it is very important for that to be explained to the Australian people by the government. As always, transparency is the key to ensuring that the Australian people understand exactly how discretion is being used and how the laws that pass through this parliament are being used.

That said, as I stated earlier, Labor will be supporting this bill. We do so in the House, but I do note that the Senate is currently undertaking an inquiry into the bill and, so, obviously, our final position, in terms of how we handle this legislation in the Senate, is dependent upon the outcome of that inquiry. But until that outcome has occurred Labor stands supporting this bill in the House.

Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Migration Amendment (Character Cancellation Consequential Provisions) Bill 2016. As you would know, Acting Deputy Speaker Goodenough, from the previous member's statement, a number of amendments in this bill give full effect to the substance of amendments made by the Migration Amendment (Character and General Visa Cancellation) Bill 2014.

The Migration Amendment (Character and General Visa Cancellation) Bill 2014 significantly strengthened the character and general visa cancellation provisions in the Migration Act to ensure that non-citizens who commit crimes in Australia, who pose a risk to the Australian community or who represent an integrity concern are appropriately considered for visa refusal or cancellation. I think any reasonable Australian would consider this to be very fair. If there are people in this country who are here on a visa and involved in crimes that are offensive to us, as a country, then the right to refuse or cancel their visa is very warranted.

The Migration Amendment (Character Cancellation Consequential Provisions) Bill 2016 has also introduced mandatory cancellation of visas held by non-citizens in prison who do not pass certain limbs of the character test; a relocation power, specifically for mandatory cancellation decisions; and, importantly, a new power for the minister to personally set aside, in the national interest, a decision made by his or her delegate or the AAT to revoke a mandatory visa cancellation decision.

The consequential amendments set out in this bill will ensure that the mandatory cancellation related powers are reflected consistently—this is important—and comprehensively throughout the Migration Act, according to the original intent of the changes made in late 2014. This will ensure that the government has the capability to proactively and robustly address character and integrity concerns. In particular, the bill will ensure that confidential information critical to decision making under the new character cancellation provisions is given the same level of protection that is currently afforded to confidential information relating to other character provisions in the Migration Act. The bill will also give full effect to the policy of mandatory cancellation by putting, beyond doubt, that, a non-citizen who is a subject of a mandatory character cancellation decision is available for removal from Australia if they do not seek revocation within the relevant time period or are unsuccessful in having their visa reinstated. Further, the bill seeks to strengthen our ability to identify non-citizens suspected of being of character concern by aligning the definition of 'character concern' in the act with the strengthened character test in section 501. Again, consistent with the original intent of the Migration Amendment (Character and General Visa Cancellation) Bill 2014, this will facilitate the lawful disclosure of non-citizens identifying information where a non-citizen is suspected of being of character concern.

This bill demonstrates this government's clear and continuing commitment to ensuring that non-citizens who pose a risk to the Australian community are dealt with effectively, efficiently and comprehensively. I commend this bill to the House.

Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have a very short time to commence my remarks.

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You have just used about 20 per cent of them!

Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There are some very important issues here about the trigger which we use to invoke the character test, and the impact that this has on a number of permanent residents who have spent the vast majority of their lives in this country, whose families may, indeed, have spent their entire lives in this country and, for all intends and purposes, consider themselves to be Australians.

I will seek, when parliament resumes, and we resume debate on this legislation, to really set out some of the examples in Western Australia where these triggers have been—

Debate interrupted.