Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

As Senator Paterson has, I rise to speak on the Migration Amendment (Australia's Engagement in the Pacific and Other Measures) Bill 2023 and the Migration (Visa Pre-application Process) Charge Bill 2023. The Migration Amendment (Australia's Engagement in the Pacific and Other Measures) Bill seeks to amend the Migration Act to provide for a visa pre-application process in the form of a ballot. Despite the title of this amendment bill, it does not explicitly or exclusively provide for the proposed Pacific engagement visa. Instead, the amendment bill provides the power to regulate, through disallowable instruments, which visa subclasses the ballot can be used for, who will be eligible to participate in the ballot and the arrangements for the conduct of the ballot.

I want to be really clear about the elements of this legislation that relate to Australia's foreign policy and to our relationships in the Pacific region. The first thing to say is this: if the government were serious about being a good neighbour to our friends in the South Pacific, the first thing the government would do is stop approving new coal and gas mines. Anything else that this government does, other than stopping approving new coal and gas mines, is simply fluttering around at the margins. Climate change is an existential threat for many South Pacific nations. They literally risk disappearing off the face of the earth. What's this government's policy response? While on one hand they continue to open new coal and gas mines, on the other hand they go to our friends in the South Pacific and say, 'Boy, have we got a visa scheme for you!'

Let's be really clear about this. If this government genuinely wanted to do the most significant and meaningful thing possible, if this government genuinely wanted to be a good neighbour and a good leader in the context of the South Pacific, it would stop approving new coal and gas mines. But, of course, the government's not going to do that, because the coal and gas corporations have got their hooks into the Labor Party just as deeply as they have their hooks into the Liberal Party. The institutionalised bribery of political donations is what is forcing this government to continue to approve new coal and gas mines. That is what is enabling the continued destruction of the future of so many Pacific island nations. So let's be very clear about what this bill doesn't do. It doesn't, of itself, take the strong stance that Australia should be taking against new coal and gas projects, and I remind folks in this chamber that that is what South Pacific nations are asking for—no new coal and gas—because climate change is such an existential threat to so many nations in the South Pacific area. Instead of, or perhaps as well as, providing a visa scheme for folks from the South Pacific, the Albanese government should ensure that it stops approving new coal and gas mines.

As an aside, I urge the government and the minister for immigration to think about what the global movement of people is going to be and specifically what the movement of people in the South Pacific is going to be as climate change rolls along over the coming years and decades. As some South Pacific nations literally disappear off the face of the earth, we will need to ensure that we step up and provide an opportunity for safe haven for those people who are displaced. It will take a lot more than what has been proposed in this legislation for us to be able to meet that aspiration.

The Migration (Visa Pre-application Process) Charge Bill 2023 provides for a fee to be charged to people registering in a pre-application process as provided by the amendment bill. The charge bill doesn't prescribe an amount to be charged. Again, this will be provided for in regulations. However, for the purposes of the Pacific engagement visa, the minister's second reading speech for the charge bill states the charge for the pre-application process will be $25.

I want to be really clear: there are good arguments for use of ballots in certain migration programs. The use of a ballot is certainly not groundbreaking or unique in the global context. Ballots are used in migration systems around the world, including in the US and in New Zealand. There are also arguments—we have heard some through the Senate inquiry process—against the use of ballots in the migration system. One argument in favour of ballots in a migration system is that it takes the patronage out of a migration system. It provides for a genuine fair go for all. It doesn't matter what your job is; it doesn't matter what your social background is; if it's a ballot everyone gets an equal opportunity. The Greens think that is a very strong argument in favour of a ballot.

So the Greens are not opposed to the introduction of a ballot process into Australia's immigration system. As the minister said in his second reading speech on this bill in the other place, ballots promote equitable and fair access to Australia's temporary and permanent migration programs.

I want to be clear that Australia's temporary and permanent migration programs are absolutely not equitable and fair at the moment. We still discriminate against people based on their mode of arrival in this country. If you arrive in Australia by boat to claim asylum, off you go to Nauru under the joint policy settings of the major parties in this place. That is neither equitable nor fair. It is also a flagrant breach of our obligations under the Refugee Convention.

Australia's immigration system is also not equitable or affair in regard to the provisions of the Migration Act 1958 and the Migration Regulations 1994 that are exempt from the operation of the Disability Discrimination Act 1992. The exemption provided to the Migration Act means that the treatment of disability in most of our migrant programs does not satisfy Australia's obligations under article 5 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities regarding equality and nondiscrimination. Let's be very clear and name it for what it is: this is ableism. Australia's migration system is an ableist migration system. It discriminates against people with disabilities. I note that, if this bill succeeded in passage through this place, the people covered by this bill would also be discriminated against if they were disabled people. Let's be very clear about this. Our migration system allows for discrimination against disabled people. That is shameful and it needs to end. We should not be running an ableist migration system in this country. We should be running an equitable and fair migration system in this country, one that is compliant with article 5 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

There have been numerous calls over many years for the removal of the exemption to the Migration Act provided by the Disability Discrimination Act. These have included calls from the United Nations as recently as 2019, from a Labor-chaired Joint Standing Committee on Migration inquiry into the migration treatment of disability, and from the current Welcoming Disability campaign, which is supported by over 100 disability and human rights organisations and experts.

Because of this government-sanctioned discrimination against disabled people in our migration system we are seeing many migrant families on temporary visas—many of whom have lived for many years in our community, including many who are on a pathway to permanent residency—at risk of deportation from this country simply because they have developed or incurred a disability or because a family member has a disability. They include families with disabled children, even when those disabled children were born in Australia. Let that sink in for a minute. A family can come here on a temporary visa; they can live and work in this country and pay their taxes in this country for many years, but if they have a child and that child has a disability it's: 'Thank you very much. Off you go.' That's what our current system provides for. That is the risk right now. A child born in Australia to parents on temporary visas can be expelled, and in that case of course the parents are going to go with the child. The effect is that the whole family is expelled from this country because the parents gave birth to a child with a disability or because one of their children born in Australia incurred a disability through an accident of some kind or through any other means. That is a disgrace and it is shameful. It needs to end, and it needs and now. It is blatant and it is unconscionable.

I want to bring to the chamber's attention Labor's policy, which says: 'People with disability have the same rights as all Australians.' Unfortunately, they don't in our migration system, because this Labor government is ignoring its own party platform. The Greens absolutely support the Labor Party platform. What we don't support is the Labor government's policy in this area.

The bill's explanatory memorandum makes it clear that to be eligible for one of the proposed Pacific engagement visas it is envisaged that a person will need to be a citizen of a participating country, meet age requirements, have a written offer of employment in Australia and meet standard public interest criteria, including criteria relating to health and character. As I said, the exemption provided to the Migration Act by the Disability Discrimination Act harks back to the bad old days when people with disabilities were regarded as burdens on society and, effectively, as second-class citizens. Many Australians believe that we have moved past those days. Unfortunately, the Migration Act exemption from the requirements of the Disability Discrimination Act makes it clear that we have not totally moved past those bad old days.

I won't get a chance to put all the Greens' views on this on the record during my second reading contribution, because time will get the better of me, but I will place on the record some further aspects of our position on some of the provisions of this bill during the committee stage. Again, the government, by failing to remove the ableism from our migration system, has passed up an opportunity here to make meaningful reform to our migration system. Secondly, and critically, if we really want to be a good neighbour to our South Pacific friends, stop approving new coal and gas mines. That is the single most critical, most important way we could show we're good neighbours to our region.