Amanda Vanstone (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Ludwig for his contribution. I am not sure that Senator Nettle will be happy with what I have to say. What she would like to achieve by virtue of this is quite clear, and I can assure you that the government will not support it, but at the same time I am keen to reinforce that we are having a review. We have been looking at this issue for some time. I have not been happy with some of the ideas that have come up. It is a very difficult area. No-one wants anybody who should be looked after to be in perilous circumstances. They should be able to get the asylum seeker assistance support scheme if that is the situation that they are in. Equally, we do not want to set up a system whereby, when people who may have arrived lawfully and have become unlawful because they have just decided to overstay or they have been through the asylum seeker process and have received a no, we say to them: ‘We set up this very expensive edifice called the migration system. You went through it and you went to the relevant tribunals and through all the courts. You got a no. We know you’re unhappy with that, but, by the way, here’s a visa to stay here lawfully and work as long as you like.’ In the end, there has to be an end point for some people, unless you want to have an open door.

We need to design a system that gets rid of some of the clutter that is there now. I think there is too much clutter. It is not so much complicated—that is, difficult to understand—as messy. The bridging visa arrangements are a bit like a game of pick-up sticks at the moment. I think the arrangements can be simplified. The government can recognise that perhaps the end point in some circumstances will be the same, so we might as well just bite the bullet and wear it. There has to be a means of arriving at a point where someone says: ‘I’ve had every opportunity. I’ve used up a lot of Australian taxpayers’ money to have my case heard. It has been properly heard and I am now going to go.’ In some cases we might agree and in other cases we might disagree about when you get to that point. But, just for the sake of argument, when you get to that point, saying to someone, ‘You’ve got to go—and, by the way, you can keep working and just keep thinking about it,’ is crazy. The alternative is to say, ‘You’ll go into detention and we’ll forcibly deport you.’ It is not sensible to have to get to that point either. It would be better if we could design a system whereby people have all their rights and opportunities and exercise them if they want, at vast expense to taxpayers, but then accept the decision when it finally gets to it.

Through you, Mr Temporary Chairman, I say to Senator Nettle and some advocacy groups that an acceptance of when the answer is no would, I think, facilitate much speedier and easier treatment of the ones for whom the answer is yes. I say that because, in any group of 100 people that you are looking at, you know that there are some who are not genuine. You will obviously carefully look at all of them in order to find the genuine ones. If you had greater confidence that, amongst the 100 people, 99 per cent were genuine, I think you would find that there would be easier administration of this. The administration of the immigration area is made harder by people trying it on and it is made harder by people not accepting the final outcome. What I and the department want to achieve is something that is simpler and easier for people to understand. I think that, if it is simpler and easier to understand, that necessarily makes it fairer. It needs to accommodate people who—and I think there would be some broad agreement on this—need to be accommodated, but there needs to be some finality for those who have had their chance, have had their go, and now should go.