Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

I have to say on those last comments that, unfortunately, the only thing this government has done is play politics. Let's start with some of the comments that the minister has made in relation to NZYQ. Let's talk about the truth of NZYQ, who is the plaintiff in this matter and the person to whom the High Court decision actually applies. The coalition inherited from Labor 30,000 people who were put into the community on bridging visas. Why did that happen? Because our detention centres were full. Fifty thousand illegal maritime arrivals had arrived under the former Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government. We had a mess to clean up. We had to reintroduce temporary protection visas because—lo and behold!—the Labor government had abolished them.

In order to clean up this mess that we inherited from the former Rudd-Gillard-Rudd Labor government, it was a fact that, under migration law, assessments needed to be done on individual claims for protection. It was also a fact that you couldn't determine what to do with an individual until their status had been determined. In other words, you had to work out if they were found to be owed protection or not and whether they could be deported back to their country of origin. So, despite the rhetoric from the Labor Party today, at staged periods in time the minister did at law what he had to do and lifted the bar to allow a certain number of people to make this application to have their protection claims assessed. Just so everybody understands, this was not an issuing of a visa. Despite what the minister and Labor have been saying, there is a big difference. The bar was lifted, as we know, for large cohorts. We were dealing with 30,000 people who had been put into our community on bridging visitors because our detention centres were full. The minister did not deal with individual cases at this point in the process. It happens to be a fact that, without lifting the bar to enable people's claims to be assessed, we could not determine what to do with them. That is actually a legal fact. One of those potential options was deportation if they could be returned to their country of origin.

So it is false to suggest—the Labor Party know this, but it doesn't stop them—that the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Dutton, intervened to grant NZYQ a visa. That is just not true. The facts do not sustain what the Labor Party are saying. The Prime Minister, Minister O'Neil and Minister Giles, quite frankly, should be ashamed of themselves for trying to mislead the Australian public.

Without a doubt, though, these types of comments were an embarrassing attempt to try and distract from the complete incompetence of the Albanese Labor government when it comes to the handling of detainees being released into the community. This also happens to be a fact: NZYQ would not be in Australia were it not for Labor's failed border protection policy which allowed 50,000 arrivals on more than 800 boats.

Let's put on the record what actually happened despite what the minister and the Australian Labor Party have been misleading the public with. What did Mr Dutton, as the relevant minister at the time, actually do? He allowed a process to take place for those who had arrived under Labor. Remember that there were 50,000 illegal maritime arrivals, more than 1,200 dead at sea and thousands of children placed into detention because of the failed border protection policies of the previous Labor government.

Mr Dutton allowed a process to take place, where those who arrived under Labor could apply to have their claims for protection assessed by the Department of Home Affairs, Immigration and Border Protection. Despite what Labor said, the fact remains there was no intervention and no visa was ever granted to this individual. Labor were either misleading the Australian public or, alternatively, perhaps they don't understand immigration law. NZYQ arrived, lo and behold, in September 2012 under the former Labor government. He arrived on a boat. He fell into the 13 August 2012 to 1 January 2014 fast-tracked cohort. We were cleaning up the mess left to us by the former Rudd-Gillard-Rudd governments. That fast-tracked cohort consisted of 24,500 illegal maritime arrivals and they all had the bar lifted en masse because, under that law, that is what the minister had to do. You couldn't determine what to do with an individual until their status had been determined; hence the minister had to lift the bar.

Cleaning up the mess even further, though, in 2015-16, the minister exercised these power on, lo and behold, 24,120 occasions, covering 23,014 non-citizens. So under sections 46A and 46B of the Immigration Act, the minister may exercise his powers to lift the legislative bar which prevents certain non-citizens from making an application for a visa. Where the minister exercises these powers, the minister specifics a class a visa for which the person may apply. So, again, despite everything that the Labor Party has been saying—clearly, desperate, no two ways about that, but they know that; that's life with the Australian Labor Party—they are quite happy to spread mistruths, as long as the mistruth fits the facts and the narrative that they want to tell. Let's not worry about what the actual facts say. In fact, God forbid the Australian people ever know what the actual facts are under this government, good grief. It is false to suggest, as I said, that Mr Dutton intervened to grant NZYQ's visa. He was cleaning up a mess left by the former Labor government in relation to the in excess of 50,000 people who had arrived here by boat.

I also have comments that I will make the next time I'm given the call in relation to an amendment that I will be moving. But in the first instance, Minister, assuming this bill is passed—and the coalition, as we have indicated, will be supporting this bill through the Senate—does the government have an indication of how many individuals released from detention as a result of the High Court decision will meet the threshold to be redetained or to have a supervision order applied?