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

I am very pleased to be able to rise in this place and indicate the Greens's support for this legislation, and I want to thank both Senator Wong and the minister for immigration, Mr Giles, for their very constructive engagement with the Greens, over a relatively long period of time, which has facilitated our support for this legislation. I'm very pleased that the minister for immigration has confirmed, by a letter to me dated yesterday, that the government will implement a review into some of the ableism that is entrenched in Australia's migration system.

The part of the ableism which the government has confirmed will be reviewed is the significant cost threshold. The significant cost threshold is a mechanism that allows for the deportation from Australia of people on temporary visas who the government, through the mechanism of the significant cost threshold, forms a view will be too burdensome for the Australian community to support. This overwhelmingly captures disabled people. But it's not just about the deportation of disabled people—this mechanism is actually used to refuse visas for people who apply to come to Australia on a temporary basis if they exceed the significant cost threshold. This is a matter that the Australian Greens have been fighting to address for many years—in fact, for well over a decade. Whilst this review ultimately doesn't commit the government to implementing any particular policy outcome, it does crack open the issue of ableism in Australia's migration system. Importantly, it allows—and this has been committed to by Minister Giles—public consultation so that people, and groups that represent people, impacted by this ableist part of Australia's migration system can make submissions to the review. Critically, that review, which will commence as soon as is practicable, will ultimately be made public after a period of time for the government to consider the outcomes and the report that is generated by the Chief Medical Officer. At the moment, there is a mechanism in Australia's migration system that allows the government to deport disabled people or refuse a visa to disabled people. That will now be reviewed, and it will be incumbent on the government to address this ableism. Australia's migration system should be a non-discriminatory migration system. Unfortunately, it is a long, long way from being non-discriminatory.

We know that our migration system discriminates against people based on their mode of arrival into this country. If you arrive by plane to claim asylum in this country, that claim will be accepted and processed. If you arrive on a boat to claim asylum in this country it's: 'Off to offshore detention in Nauru with you. You don't get to stay in Australia and make a claim for asylum.' That is absolutely discriminatory and it is racist, because I guarantee you now that if a group of white folks arrived here by boat they would not be sent to Nauru. They would never have been sent to Manus Island to endure the deprivations that the men on Manus Island faced for so many years. They would never be sent to Nauru to endure the deprivations that innocent women and children on Nauru faced for so many years. We discriminate based on mode of arrival, and it is contrary to our obligations under the Refugee Convention.

We also discriminate against people with health conditions and disabled people via the mechanism of the significant cost threshold. That will now be reviewed. This is a significant step towards reducing and, hopefully, one day ending the ableism that is entrenched within Australia's migration system. So I do want to thank Senator Wong, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, and Mr Giles, the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs, for a number of discussions I've had with them both in recent times and to indicate how grateful we are for Minister Giles indicating to me by letter yesterday that this review would be commenced.

The one element that the government absolutely has to address through this review is the capacity for the significant cost threshold to be used to deport disabled children who are born in this country. We should have a right to citizenship for everyone born in Australia. So many other countries around the world have that; we should have that in Australia. Leaving that aside for a moment, it is an absolute disgrace that parents come to Australia—invited in as our guests on temporary visas—live here, work here, pay taxes here and give birth to a child who has a disability, and then that disability is used by the Australian government as a mechanism to deport the child and, therefore, deport the family. That is disgrace. I acknowledge that Minister Giles has positively intervened in all such cases that have come before him seeking ministerial intervention. I thank him for those interventions from the bottom of my heart, but the simple fact is that those families still have to go through lengthy quasi-judicial and judicial processes before they can apply to the minister for the minister's intervention. They are time consuming, they are anxiety inducing and it takes a lot of money to go through those processes. They create massive amounts of stress and uncertainty in people's lives. The government needs to respond to this review by ensuring that no child born in Australia to temporary visa holders is deported by the use of the significant-cost threshold mechanism. I want to place on the record that that is the absolute minimum the Greens expect the government to do from this review.

The government also needs to respond to this review by massively increasing the significant-cost threshold so that fewer people are caught by this inhumane, bureaucratic instrument. The government also needs to be abundantly clear about how these thresholds are set, why they are set where they are and what the process for setting these thresholds is. The government also needs to make sure that, when the costs are calculated, they are calculated in a real-world way but also in a fair way. For example, the inclusion of the cost of special education in the calculation of these costs needs to end. We will work together with the disability community to make sure that they are fully informed about their capacity to feed into this review and that they keep the pressure on for equitable and just outcomes from this review.

I want to end by acknowledging my friend and colleague Senator Jordon Steele-John. Senator Steele-John is an amazing advocate for disabled people in this place. He has come into this parliament and almost single-handedly delivered the disability royal commission. He has worked very, very closely with me and a range of other senators right across the political spectrum to make sure that we understand the challenges faced by disabled people in this country and that we work together to respond to those challenges. I want to say on a personal level that I have a far greater appreciation for and understanding of the challenges faced by disabled people thanks to my friendship and my professional relationship with Senator Steele-John. I just want to thank him for educating me and allowing me to understand those things. We will proudly support this legislation, and we commend the bill to the chamber.