Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

I move Democrat amendment (6) on sheet 4868:

(6)    Clause 22, page 33 (after line 11), at the end of the clause, add:

      (12)    For the purpose of subsection (1), the Minister must, if the person was the holder of a Temporary Protection Visa during that period, treat that period as one in which the person was present in Australia as a permanent resident.

Note:   Temporary Protection Visas are provided for under the Migration Regulations 1994.

I have reflected on this already to some extent so I will not go on at great length. Basically the intent of this amendment is to address an issue for those people who have been residing in Australia on temporary protection visas. During their period of residency the minister should treat—must treat—that period as if the person were present in Australia as a permanent resident. Senators would know that people on temporary protection visas, by and large, do not leave the country at all whilst they are on the visas. They do not have rights to re-enter the country if they do leave, except by special dispensation, and so the vast majority of them on temporary protection visas spend their entire time living as residents in Australia. There are discretionary components within the legislation which do allow waiver of the residency requirement under special circumstances, and I recognise that there is a discretion there, but I think that it would be better if it were automatic for refugees who have been here on temporary protection visas to have that counted as permanent residency.

I accept that under the changes in this legislation there is only a requirement for 12 months permanent residence rather than two years—the 12 months immediately preceding the day the person made the application—but there have to be four years of residence in total. So people who have been on a temporary protection visa, once they have a permanent visa, would only be required to reside here for a further 12 months. I believe that it would be appropriate for them not to need to wait that extra 12 months if they have already resided here for the four years.

It should also be emphasised, on top of that, that many people that have had that period of extended residency in Australia on TPVs have also had quite a number of years prior to that stuck in detention centres. Quite explicitly in the legislation that does not count as time spent in Australia. To some extent that is logical and I accept that. If you are in Australia as an unlawful noncitizen according to the act, whether or not you are in a detention centre or out in the community—as I would prefer people to be—then it is reasonable for that not to count as time residing in Australia because in the legal sense of the word you are not a resident. But, once people are given a temporary protection visa, an acknowledgement that they are a refugee, then I believe that period should be counted straightaway as the start of permanent residence for the purposes of becoming a citizen.

My understanding is that, on average, people on refugee visas are quicker to take up citizenship than other migrants, which is quite a logical situation. Most refugees have, by definition, experienced a lot of instability in their lives and have had fairly significant uprooting of their existence. They are fairly keen to fully connect with their new country as quickly as possible and remove any further instability from their future. As I am sure all senators would acknowledge, Australia has benefited enormously from the contribution of many refugees, whether they have come through the humanitarian program or via boat arrivals. I will not revisit the debate from earlier today about asylum seekers arriving by boat, but it is widely acknowledged by all sides of politics that we have benefited a lot from the contribution of many people who have arrived by boat and have been accepted as refugees. There is always the occasional bad apple, as there is in the wider migration program and as there is, of course, amongst the Australian-born section of the community. But I am not aware of any evidence that shows there is any greater risk from people who have arrived as asylum seekers or, indeed, that theirs has been a lesser contribution over time.

The intent of this amendment is to try to remove what I believe is an unnecessary barrier to these refugees being able to become citizens as soon as possible after they have fulfilled the four-year residency requirement that will now be in place. By any measure, that is a very long period of time. I believe it is particularly beneficial, not just for the refugees but for Australia, for these refugees to be able to get on with their lives. The sooner that security and stability is present in their lives, the more completely they will be able to fully participate in the Australian community.

As it is somewhat related, I once again ask the minister a question relating to clause 22. As I noted before, under clause 22(1)(b) time spent in Australia as an unlawful noncitizen does not count as being part of the four-year residency requirements. There is an exemption to that under subclause 4A. For the purposes of subclause (1)(b), the minister may waive that requirement if the person was an unlawful noncitizen because of administrative error. I was wondering whether we could get a clearer detailing of what constitutes ‘administrative error’ with regard to somebody being an unlawful noncitizen. Does that relate to perhaps a Cornelia Rau type circumstance, without wanting to be provocative by using that example—she is someone who was deemed mistakenly to be an unlawful noncitizen—or would it also relate to, for example, people who were in detention having been refused a visa on the grounds of mistaken identity that was then overturned on appeal?

Examples like that have occurred and I have spoken about them in this place before. I really want to get to examples of people who have lost time—quite long periods of time in some cases; a number of years—being kept as unlawful noncitizens due to decisions that were later overturned by government rather than anything they did wrong. In those circumstances, it is only fair and just for those people to be able to count their time. Again, in Australia’s interests, it is better not to have those sorts of reasons in the way of potentially valuable citizens being able to become citizens as soon as practicable.