Kristina Keneally (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to contribute to the debate on the Migration Amendment (Strengthening the Character Test) Bill 2019. From the outset, I want to make clear that Labor strongly supports the current powers to cancel or refuse visas on character grounds or criminal grounds which exist under section 501 and section 116 of the Migration Act. In 2014 Labor supported amendments to the Migration Act which strengthened the character test and gave the minister the power to cancel the visas of non-citizens and deport foreign criminals. This included people convicted of serious crimes involving violence, sexual offences, weapons offences, breaches of AVOs, and offences against women and children.

Since 2014 the government has cancelled thousands of visas under section 501 alone. If non-citizens in Australia commit these crimes, the government can and should cancel their visas. In fact, the extremely broad discretionary powers that already exist thanks to Labor's support mean that foreigners do not even need to spend a day in jail or be convicted of a crime to have their visa cancelled. Furthermore, the minister also has the powers under the Migration Act to refuse the visas of people of bad character before they can even come to Australia. The government can do this if these people pose a risk to the community or have a violent or criminal past. The minister can also refuse a visa if there is a significant risk to an individual who would vilify a segment of the community or incite discord or represent danger to them during their time in Australia. All of these powers currently exist.

Let's take about the bill. Let's talk about a minister for immigration whose word can't be trusted and a Prime Minister who would rather play politics with domestic violence than get an outcome that would actually make life safer for women and children. First of all, the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs is Alex Hawke. Let me say upfront that I like Alex Hawke. I acknowledge that since he took the role of immigration minister he and I have been able to work together on a number of bipartisan initiatives: changes to the distinguished talent visa that would let Quade Cooper and other distinguished Australians—yes, people who should be Australians but currently aren't—be able to call Australia home; and quicker responses to visa applications during the height of the Afghanistan crisis, which is important to many Labor MPs who represent large sections of the Afghan-Australian community. Minister Hawke and I worked together.

These examples of bipartisanship in the national interest mean it is all the more disappointing that yesterday the minister for immigration reneged on a deal to work with me over the next two weeks to come up with a plan to get an agreement on this bill. Yesterday, at noon, the minister and I met. We struck a deal to negotiate a final position on this bill and bring it back for the final sitting fortnight of this year. At the heart of that deal, Minister Hawke and I agreed to work on Ministerial Direction No. 90 and to consider changes sought by the temporary visa working group, by the National Advocacy Group on Women on Temporary Visas Experiencing Violence and by the inTouch Multicultural Centre Against Family Violence.

The minister sat there in his office and agreed with me that he and I would work together, over the next fortnight, to finalise these changes to the ministerial direction to keep women and children safe. The minister also agreed that he and I would work together over the next fortnight to consider what, if any, changes we might make to the government's own amendment to its own bill to ensure that low-level offending was not inadvertently captured by the bill. That was at noon yesterday. Just before 5 pm, the minister's office called mine and pulled that deal.

Extraordinary. A minister—a recently promoted cabinet minister, no less—makes a deal to work with the opposition, to deliver real changes that would make a real difference to real women and children who experience domestic violence, and then the minister yanks it just a few hours later. Do you know what Minister Hawke said, when I spoke to him last night? He said that Senator Anne Ruston had told him the bill had to be voted on today. He blamed the Senate leadership for forcing him to renege on that deal.

I don't believe that for one minute. There is only one person who can make a cabinet minister renege on a deal, and that is the Prime Minister. Clearly, the Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, has yanked Minister Hawke's chain. The minister for immigration made a deal. The minister for immigration entered a real bipartisan negotiation, with a genuine intention to make life safer for women and children who are victims of domestic violence, and just four hours later he pulled it. The Prime Minister pulled his chain.

Extraordinary. A negotiation, an agreement, in good faith with a cabinet minister, to defer this bill to the next sitting fortnight and to land a deal, was overturned within a few hours. Senator Ruston didn't do this. The Prime Minister did it. I say the minister's behaviour was extraordinary but this is all too predictable from Prime Minister Morrison. He always looks for the political game. The Prime Minister never cares about the outcome. The Prime Minister doesn't care about Australians. The Prime Minister would rather play a political game than get a good outcome for victims of family violence. The Prime Minister overruled this cabinet minister just so he could run a political wedge on Labor and the crossbench. The Prime Minister's leaving domestic violence victims—women and children—behind.

We know because the Prime Minister's own colleagues have told the media: at the heart of the Morrison government sits a focus group. As Senator Fierravanti-Wells told the Senate this week, it's not the Prime Minister's office it's the 'prime marketing office'. The Prime Minister is so obsessed with serving his own political agenda that he is willing to shame, embarrass and weaken his own cabinet colleague Alex Hawke. I almost feel sorry for Minister Hawke. He's had the rug pulled out from under him. He's been shown to be weak in the cabinet. He's been shown to be a minister who cannot keep his word.

This is a Prime Minister whose character constantly reveals to the Australian people he is obsessed with politics, and he never delivers. Let's understand this. No matter what the government members might say in this debate today, this bill does not need to be finalised this week. You will hear from those opposite breathlessly declaring this bill is so urgent and vital and we need to get it resolved today or tomorrow; it certainly can't be left to the next sitting fortnight. Let's understand, any claim that this legislation is somehow considered urgent by the government is simply untrue.

The government first introduced this bill in 2018, more than a thousand days ago. They never brought it to a vote. They reintroduced it after the 2019 election. I wrote to the then immigration minister, David Coleman, in September 2019. I outlined the three things that Labor sought from the government in order to secure passage of this bill—and I never got a response. I didn't hear from Minister Coleman. I didn't hear from Minister Tudge. I am now onto the third immigration minister of this tired eight-year-old government, Minister Hawke, and he only raised this bill with me last week for the first time. We exchanged letters, we had a conversation, we agreed to meet. We met yesterday. We agreed yesterday at noon to a process to settle this bill in the next sitting fortnight, three years since the bill was first introduced, two years after I first wrote to the immigration minister. Finally, an immigration minister in this tired government decides to engage in a genuine constructive dialogue and then, within four hours, welches on his word.

This is not a genuine legislative process by the government; it is a political running gun game, a political ploy from a Prime Minister who only serves his political interests, not the national interests and certainly not the interests of women and children. If this bill was so urgent, the government would have dealt with it when they first introduced it, when I first wrote to them or indeed would have dealt with it genuinely, as Minister Hawke sought to do yesterday.

What is the intent of those opposite trying to pass this legislation? They have brought this forward in an abhorrent gutter politics at its very worst, a new low for this tired eight-year-old government that has plumbed new depths under Mr Morrison. If there has been a single instance of domestic violence in the last 1,090 days that could have been prevented by government actually engaging on this bill constructively with the opposition to get it passed, well then that incident sits on their heads.

Today, this is another effort by Scotty from marketing, the Prime Minister from marketing, to change the narrative to fix up his own failures—his failures on quarantine, his failures on vaccine rollout, his failures to lead. This is a Prime Minister who says 'it's not my job', 'that's a matter for the states 'and 'I don't hold a hose, mate'—too little too late. It is always a political game.

Let's talk about this bill. First of all, I am a little concerned that the minister for immigration fails to understand he already has the power to deport perpetrators of domestic violence. He fails to understand that women and children who are the victims of domestic violence, whether they are on temporary visas or Australian citizens, who suffer violence at the hands of visa holders, are often at risk. Those women and children, if they report domestic violence, their visa status is also at risk. Sometimes there are Australian children with a mother on a visa and those children are at risk of being separated from their mother. These are real things that happen, and the minister yesterday agreed to work with me to resolve them and four hours later pulled that deal.

In relation to this bill, Labor outlined two years ago to the government the three concerns that we had with this legislation. The removal of retrospectivity, a concern first highlighted by Jason Wood and the government-controlled committee on migration. Jason Wood called for the removal of retrospectivity. Labor also highlighted the concern that low level offending would be inadvertently captured by this bill, a concern the government has acknowledged is real. They are moving an amendment to their own bill. I don't think it goes far enough. Minister Hawke and I agreed yesterday to talk about how we can improve that amendment and we agreed we would work over the next two weeks to fix it but no, as we noted, the minister had the rug pulled out from under him, not by Senator Ruston—I don't believe that for a minute—but by the Prime Minister, who would rather get a political game going than deliver a pragmatic and practical outcome to help keep women and children safe. And Labor raised the concern about the disproportionate effect that it would have on our friends in New Zealand. The New Zealand government has made a submission and appeared at Senate inquiries. The New Zealand government do not just randomly appear at government inquiries but they said that this bill would 'Make a bad situation worse for New Zealanders and therefore New Zealand. This is one area of people-to-people relationships where our Prime Minister—the New Zealand Prime Minister—is pointing out the corrosive effect and we don't want it to be corrosive to our political relationship'. Those are the words of the New Zealand High Commissioner. This bill could put our relationship with our closest neighbour, our dear friends, in jeopardy, which is why Labor has asked the government to review and revise the ministerial direction. And we're not the ones who first raised this: Jason Wood raised it in the government-controlled committee! Jason Wood said that this ministerial direction should be revised to lessen the impact on New Zealanders. These are all matters that Labor raised two years ago and we only heard back from the government this week.

In conclusion, what I say to the minister for immigration is: come back to the negotiating table. You and I, Minister, had a constructive conversation yesterday. You and I discussed how we were going to make life safer for women and children who are victims of domestic violence. You and I, Minister Hawke, discussed how we were going to work together to ensure that this bill did not capture low-level offending, and then you welshed on the deal. Your Prime Minister pulled the rug out from under you. Well, stand up to the Prime Minister and tell him, just this once, that he doesn't get to play a political running-gun game. He should deliver a real outcome, a pragmatic outcome—an outcome that would make women and children safer, and an outcome that would ensure low-level offending is not captured. That's something you have already agreed, Minister, is a problem with your own bill. Frankly, Minister, you should ensure that our close friends and neighbours in New Zealand are not disproportionately affected; you should not corrode the relationship with New Zealand.

So I say to the minister: come back to the negotiating table. If we get to the committee stage today, I flag that we have amendments to deal with visa privatisation. And, by the way, on visa privatisation: the government has raised a concern about electronic tourist visas in terms of our amendment. I say to the government: fine, we will fix that up—but you should rule out visa privatisation. And we have amendments that seek to deal with New Zealand. Before we get to a final position on this bill, what I say to the government—what I say to minister—is to come back and do your job, mate. Come back and engage in a genuine legislative process. Don't just kowtow and be the water boy for a Prime Minister who would rather play a political game. You know this is wrong, this chamber knows this is wrong and we can do better to make life safer for women and children.