Concetta Fierravanti-Wells (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The bill that is currently being considered is, it has to be pointed out, quite a lengthy one and is still under consideration. The committee has suggested that its work was supposedly significantly hampered by the absence or limited availability of critical information and also by the provision of documentation that it says provided only a minimalist framework for the proposed system. I understand that the department in fact provided a lot of detailed information in relation to the current arrangements regarding both Nauru and Papua New Guinea. This covered details of such things as accommodation, health care, education, arrangements for processing asylum claims, access to legal assistance and opportunities for monitoring by the Commonwealth Ombudsman. Let us not forget that the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs has foreshadowed that a number of reviews are also being undertaken in relation to practical arrangements for offshore processing, such as community accommodation arrangements for women, children and families.

What I would like to do in the limited time I have available to me is to just focus a little bit on what this new legislation will actually mean. What it means practically is that people who arrive, unauthorised, by sea will no longer be able to make a protection visa application by reaching the mainland rather than an excised place. People who arrive in Australia by sea and seek asylum will be processed offshore. People found to be refugees will remain offshore while resettlement is arranged. As under the existing provisions, the minister will have a personal, non-compellable power to allow a person to make a valid visa application in Australia.

Australia will continue to meet its international obligations as far as refugee processing goes. Australia has a very, very good record in relation to its intake of refugees and its processing in this area. Any claims to refugee status will be properly assessed at an offshore location in accordance with the provisions of the refugee convention. As I said, Australia will continue to meet its international obligations in relation to refugee processing.

I remind the Senate that the refugee convention does not set down any particular process for signatory countries to decide who are refugees. This is a matter for each country to determine. Australia will ensure that reliable refugee assessment processes are in place. The Australian government and the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs have taken several opportunities to brief the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees on the operation of the proposed new arrangements, and I am sure that the department will continue to do so as the new arrangements are further articulated.

I want to take the opportunity to make some general comments in relation to what is a constant attack on the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs that we see in this chamber. I think we need to look at the department in a wider context. This is a department that makes in excess of four million decisions a year. It administers a large and complex migration and refugee program. In terms of statistics, in addition to the 43 per cent of Australians who either are born overseas or have at least one parent born overseas, Australia is host to a large number of temporary entrants. In December 2005, for example, there were around three-quarters of a million people in this country on a temporary basis. Just to illustrate my point in relation to the department that makes four million decisions a year, in the five minutes or so that I am speaking today, the department has considered and granted around 45 visas and around 225 people have entered and left our country, which is almost one a second. (Time expired)