Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader for Science) Share this | Hansard source

Labor supports this bill, the Migration Amendment (Family Violence and Other Measures) Bill 2016, which was under consideration by the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee when the previous parliament was dissolved on 9 May last year.

During the election campaign, we took to the people of Australia a number of measures aimed at ending the scourge of family violence. Eliminating family violence must be a national priority. It is an area where there ought to be, and I believe is, bipartisanship. I can see no evidence to the contrary on that point. We are therefore keen to work with the government and the crossbench to achieve greater protection for women and children facing domestic violence, and this bill is consistent with that aim.

The purpose of this bill is to implement an assessable sponsorship framework for sponsored family visas similar to the framework that applies to sponsored work visas. Under this framework, a sponsor will have to make an application to become a sponsor before the primary visa application can be submitted. The sponsor will then be subject to several legally enforceable obligations. All family visas already have a sponsorship requirement, but under current practice there are few enforcement mechanisms. There is little scrutiny of the character of the sponsor or of the responsibilities that they assume. In some instances, applicants have not had longstanding knowledge of the sponsoring family member. There have been claims of family violence arising from within the existing program. This bill is intended to provide a remedy for that: it allows the sharing of police checks, and visa applicants will have access to information to understand the background of their sponsors in a much more effective manner. Under the framework introduced by this bill, applicants will be supplied with the information that they need before they agree to accept sponsorship. For obvious reasons, this is especially important when dealing with applicants with children.

The bill gives the minister or a delegate the power to refuse a sponsorship application or cancel an existing sponsorship where police checks reveal that the sponsor has a history of family violence, where the sponsor has a history of previous immigration cancellations or where there has been inappropriate use of the family visa program. Importantly, the bill retains provisions of the Migration Act that allow people applying for permanent residence in Australia to continue with their application after the breakdown of a marriage or a de facto relationship in which they or other family members have experienced violence by their partner.

This bill is an important step in providing greater protection to the victims or potential victims of family violence. But, in the bipartisan spirit that we believe offers the best way to go forward in this matter, Labor urge the government to go further. We ask the government to consider measures to protect people on temporary visas by creating a new type of visa. These new temporary visas would remove impediments to women leaving their partners and provide a right to work so that women leaving violent relationships will be able to support themselves.

I say again that Labor is willing to work with the government on this matter and I commend this bill to the Senate.