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

I seek leave to move a motion in relation to the government response to the report of the Senate Legal and Constitutional References Committee on the administration and operation of the Migration Act 1958.

Leave granted.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

This one was tabled in March 2006, so it has taken 15 months to respond. It is slightly better. It seems pretty bad when you have to say that it is better to be responding in 15 months later rather than 20, particularly given that this report contained 62 recommendations. At least there was a substantial number that the government had to respond to. It is still, in my view, completely inadequate to take 15 or 16 months to do so, but I suppose, compared to the other two hopelessly inexcusable efforts I have mentioned, it looks slightly better in comparison. But it is still not good enough.

I did want to go to the substance nonetheless of the government’s responses here. Again, this was a comprehensive committee inquiry that involved a lot of input from the public, a lot of submissions and public hearings. The inquiry itself was initiated by a motion of mine back in mid-2005. So it has taken a while—two years—to get through the whole process. It is a bit ironic in a way: the government senators on the committee dissented from all of the recommendations and basically did not agree with the report’s findings, so they were a minority on the committee. Despite that, the government has actually agreed to, agreed to in principle, agreed to in part or noted 41 of the 62 recommendations, which is probably not too bad a strike rate in some respects, given that the government senators on the committee did not support any of them. I should note that some of them have been acted on. Since the report was tabled back in March 2006 a lot has happened in the migration area and in the immigration department. We have seen some changes and improvements, some of which go to the issues raised in the committee report. So I do welcome that.

But I want to highlight some of the areas where the government have rejected recommendations or where they have noted them as something they are still looking at, because that is another area that needs to be highlighted. Firstly, some of the recommendations dealt with reforming mandatory detention. We have actually had some changes in the area of mandatory detention since then, but not as many as the committee would have liked. It is no surprise that the government has rejected those, but I would once again point to the report from the Ombudsman that was tabled in this chamber just yesterday. That report pointed out the continuing harm and suffering that is caused by extended detention and the immense public expense. Once again I urge that that issue be reviewed.

A number of the other recommendations that the government has rejected relate to support for visa applicants in initial interviews, access to legal assistance and support in other circumstances. There still seems to be this attitude that seeking legal advice is somehow or other an attempt to try and game the system. The simple fact is—and the evidence is absolutely crystal clear on this, as it was in this committee’s inquiry—that the provision of adequate support and assistance in putting together claims at the start saves everybody an enormous amount of time and thus, apart from anything else, saves the taxpayer an enormous amount of money. But as to the idea that continuing to try and run this sort of tricky little process—where you can get legal assistance if you happen to know to ask for it, then you have to go through certain hoops, and then there are all these time constraints and other sorts of barriers—is somehow or other stopping the system being rorted, all that does is put more sand in the gears of the whole show. The government is continuing to refuse areas like rights for visa applicants to have legal representation in their primary interviews, despite the fact that plenty of examples have shown that cases that have taken five years—and that is something we have all complained about: how long it takes to get to the end—have sometimes taken that long because they just did not get a fair go right at the start and it takes all that time for that to be unpicked. Basically you have to go back and do it properly. That is why those recommendations are there—not to make it as easy as possible because we are a soft touch. Having a duty solicitor for all detainees would assist them to get out of the whole show quicker, one way or the other. These would be savings, not costs.

The continual narrow interpretation of the Migration Act, which limits detainees’ rights to access lawyers, whereby they have to actually know to request legal assistance, is an ongoing problem, as is a lack of legal aid assistance on migration matters. The government is still saying that sufficient assistance on migration matters is provided through the IAAAS scheme. The simple fact is, and the evidence is, that it is not. Again, it is a false economy. You might say, ‘There’s only so much out there; we’ve got to ration the money around,’ but if people do not get the assistance, people who have a fair case will keep pushing to have that fair case heard and it just clogs up the system and costs a lot more.

One of the key areas that I have concerns about relates to the recommendations regarding assistance for people on bridging visas, which has been a continuing problem. There is still a problem right here and now, with thousands of people in the Australian community on bridging visas for prolonged periods with absolutely no assistance: no work rights, no Medicare entitlements, no welfare entitlements—they are totally living on charity for years, some of them with children. This is just an unsatisfactory situation. I know there are issues that need to be balanced here, but we have the balance wrong. The government are refusing to act on some of those recommendations. And they are saying, ‘We’re doing a review on bridging visas.’ Well, that is good, but they have been doing a review on bridging visas since around the time the report was tabled, I think. How long are we going to have these reviews?

A similar area where there are problems with costs, with delays, with uncertainty, with expense and with hardship is the area of ministerial discretion. You do need to have an ultimate safety net, but it is grossly overloaded, it is opaque and it is inconsistent. There is a continual refusal to accept recommendations regarding that, despite the fact that it was clear even before this report was done that there was a problem. It was a problem, I recall, that was highlighted in a Senate committee inquiry in this area back in 2000. But the response here—and the government have noted a few recommendations about that—is that they are reviewing that as well. That review goes back to the previous minister, Minister Vanstone, and it must be getting close to 12 months since that review was started. We cannot keep having these reviews and letting them drag on and on, because the problem is continuing and the costs to the taxpayer and the human costs are continuing. I point out that this response from the government may have taken 15 or 16 months. There was a select committee report into the specific issue of the exercise of ministerial discretion that looked into these issues in detail. I think it made 21 recommendations in March 2004 that have still not been responded to. To say, ‘Well, we’re still looking at it; we’re still reviewing it,’ is just not good enough. That is over three years. That is before the last election—ages ago! They say a week is a long time in politics. Well, three years is a long, long time to not respond to a Senate committee report, particularly in an area which has not been working efficiently and has been shown time and again to have real problems with transparency. It is just not good enough.

It is no wonder we have a credibility problem to such a degree with the political process, when we have all this expense of holding Senate committee inquiries, and we continually encourage people to have their say—we go out there and say, ‘Put in submissions; tell us about it; we need to know what’s happening in the real world; we’ve got to look at this; we need to be informed’—and we put it together, we print all the evidence, Hansard do all their work, the secretariats do all their work, the printers do all their work, we put out the report with all the recommendations and say, ‘Here’s what we’ve found; here’s all the evidence’—and then: nothing. Three years or more go by and: nothing. After three years or more the problem is still there and there is some internal review in the department. It is not good enough. So I welcome the acceptance of some of these recommendations and the progress that has been made, but there is still too much that has not happened. It needs further action and it once again reinforces the Democrats’ core belief that we need comprehensive reform of our Migration Act. Until we get that, these problems will not go away. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.