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

I thank Senator Brandis for the question—a quite appropriate question, given his understanding of these issues. The answer in short is yes, quite specifically, by the shadow minister for immigration, Mr Tony Burke, and by immigration agent Marion Le. I will give you a couple of quotes. Mr Burke said in a doorstop on 14 September last year:

The story that the Kola name is not their true identity is a fabrication she—

that is, moi—

came up with last night.

The second quote reads:

The department of immigration knows exactly who this couple are. They know it is Mr and Mrs Kola and the concept of coming up with a second identity was only a last-ditch effort after a failed attempt at deportation.

The next quote reads:

I don’t believe for a minute the minister’s excuses that they had discovered they weren’t really Mr and Mrs Kola. They had trouble deporting them so they decided to revert to what they knew were false names.

Ms Le said, ‘To my mind, that smacks of fraudulently dealing with another government department.’ As Senator Brandis knows, these are serious accusations to make. This is not an accusation of a mistake; it is an accusation of a wilful intent to misrepresent the truth. In other words, it is alleged here that the intention is to deal fraudulently with another department. They are terrible accusations. Even for the shadow minister, who used to work for former Senator Richardson—‘whatever it takes’—I thought it was ‘a bridge too far’. That is what I thought at the time. I thought it was ‘a bridge too far’. We will see whether he has walked too far over the bridge and whether it will take the pressure. These were terrible accusations to make. The trouble is they were not correct. Both the shadow minister and the immigration agent now most likely know that they have made false accusations. To the best of my knowledge, neither of those people has apologised, either privately or publicly.

The case concerned a couple—Mr and Mrs A. They came in as Mr and Mrs A. They quickly said, ‘No, that’s not us; we’re Mr and Mrs B.’ After visa applications and reviews had resulted in a refusal of their visas, in good faith the department applied for documents in the names of Mr and Mrs B, because that is who they said they were and that is what they provided evidence to the effect of. In other words, the department, which are often accused of not believing people, believed these people, took their evidence and sought documents, but they later became convinced that the couple were not Mr and Mrs B, that they were in fact Mr and Mrs A. In other words, the documents they originally came to Australia on were their real documents and their real identities. So we applied for travel documents in that name; hence the accusation that the department have sought documents in two names, that they are fabricating it and they know it.