Chris Ellison (WA, Liberal Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Migration Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2008. I indicate from the outset that the coalition will support this bill. It is an omnibus bill that makes a range of amendments to the Migration Act 1958, the Australian Citizenship Act 2007, the Australian Citizenship (Transitionals and Consequentials) Act 2007 and the Customs Act 1901. These amendments come about as a result in part of some court decisions last year and over a period of time since then. I think it is fair to say that, in some of the cases, the coalition when it was in government was looking at amendments of a similar nature to address these decisions.

I turn firstly to schedule 1. Schedule 1 of the bill will streamline the procedures for notifying the parties of a decision of the Migration Review Tribunal and the Refugee Review Tribunal. The current notification procedures have been the source of considerable litigation over some years. The coalition notes that schedule 1 of the bill was also intended to reinstate effective time limits for applying to the courts for judicial review of migration decisions. The current time limits in the Migration Act have been made largely ineffective as a result of the April 2007 High Court decision of Bodruddaza v Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs and the July 2007 full Federal Court decision in the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship and SZKKC.

The government’s new amendments will remove schedule 1 of the bill. It has come to light that the bill as drafted would not have worked appropriately in relation to decisions which have no merit review rights attached. The coalition understands that further consideration is required to determine how best to reinstate effective time limits for all judicially reviewable decisions. That is a fairly straightforward process and one which the coalition supports.

Schedule 2 of the bill clarifies the requirement for operators of aircraft and ships to report on passengers and crew prior to entering Australia via the advanced passenger processing system and establishes an infringement notice regime. This is a very important part of border protection. When I was Minister for Justice and Customs I dealt with it from the Customs angle and saw firsthand the very good system we have in place in relation to advanced clearing of incoming passengers to Australia. It is therefore very important, both from the immigration side and the customs side, that we have streamlining in relation to this and that we have an infringement regime which applies to noncompliance. The government’s amendments will insert a new subsection at the end of sections 64ACD and 245N of the Customs Act 1901 to make it clear that an operator of an aircraft or ship is liable to separate prosecution under these offence provisions in relation to each individual passenger and crew member rather than in relation to each journey not reported on prior to arrival in Australia.

Schedule 3 of the bill makes a number of minor amendments to the act to clarify immigration clearance of non-citizen children born in Australia, compliance with visa conditions and the operation of certain provisions relating to bridging visas. That again is a technical amendment and one which is needed.

Schedule 4 of the bill includes measures that aim to increase protection for clients who engage offshore migration agents, by enabling the department to refuse to communicate with those offshore migration agents when there are concerns about their professionalism, competence, conduct or character. Schedule 4 of the bill was not considered urgent at the time of the bill’s introduction; however, the legislation must now be passed quickly due to the full Federal Court’s decision on 17 July in Sales v Minister for Immigration and Citizenship.

In relation to migration agents offshore, the situation is one where we have an accreditation process but we do not have the jurisdiction, extraterritorially, to legislate as such. So it is important that we have in place an ability for the department to take some action where it thinks that the migration agent concerned is not competent or professional or where there is some question as to their character.

I mentioned the case of Sales v Minister for Immigration and Citizenship. The issue there was more to do with cancellation of visas, on the basis of character. Of course, it is important that the minister have an ability to cancel any visa on the basis of character. What happened in the Sales case was that, due to the technical interpretation of whether a visa was granted or held, there was a setting-aside of a decision in relation to Mr Sales. It is important that this is remedied, because the minister should have that ability. The coalition certainly support that and we support these amendments in the bill.

Schedule 5 seeks to clarify the meaning of certain provisions in the Australian Citizenship Act 2007 and the Australian Citizenship (Transitionals and Consequentials) Act 2007. The amendments also aim to ensure that Australian citizenship law is consistent with our international obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness 1961, and that again is fairly straightforward.

For the range of reasons that I have outlined, the coalition supports this bill. In some part, it sets straight the situation as a result of previous court decisions where the interpretation of the courts was not as we had anticipated. I understand the government has some amendments to bring in relation to this bill. I will deal with those when we come to them in the committee stage. I can foreshadow that from what we have seen of the amendments they seem to be fairly straightforward, but best I leave my remarks to the committee stage in relation to them.