Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Migration Amendment (Complementary Protection) Bill 2011. The bill before the Senate seeks to amend the Migration Act 1958. The current bill is based on a previous bill titled the Migration Amendment (Complementary Protection) Bill 2009, which was introduced into the Senate in 2009 but was not subsequently debated and lapsed on 19 July 2010 when parliament was prorogued for the 2010 federal election. Prior to the prorogation of the parliament in 2010, the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee considered the earlier bill and made a number of recommendations.

I note that in the second reading speech of the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship he makes the observation that the bill comprises a number of key points. These include, firstly, protection visa applicants will continue to have their claims first considered against the refugee convention related criteria set out in Australia's migration legislation. Secondly, applicants who are found not to be refugees under the refugee convention will have their claims considered under the new complementary protection regime. Thirdly, this approach recognises the primacy of the refugee convention as an international protection instrument and is supported by the UNHCR. Fourthly, the bill establishes new criteria for the grant of a protection visa in circumstances that engage Australia's non-refoulement obligations under human rights treaties other than the refugee convention. Fifthly, Australia will not return a person to a place where there is a real risk that a person will suffer particular types of significant harm contained in the relevant human rights treaties, namely: the arbitrary deprivation of life—having the death penalty carried out—being subjected to torture, being subjected to cruel or inhumane treatment or punishment, or being subjected to degrading treatment or punishment.

The opposition further notes that the bill also provides for a range of consequential amendments to the Migration Act that are to be inserted by the bill. The opposition also notes that if the bill is agreed to in its present form amendments to the Migration Regulations 1994 will be required to complete implementation of complementary protection in the protection visa subclass. The government claims that it has identified a number of significant lacunas in the existing law and is seeking to address these lacunas. The government further claims that the Migration Act as it currently stands provides that only those people fleeing persecution for one of the five reasons outlined in the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees—namely, race, religion, nationality, social group or political opinion—are eligible to receive a protection visa through the usual process. As a consequence of the construct of the current law, persons who are fleeing from other acts of barbarism or threats to their life can find that, because of the provisions of the current Migration Act, they are not eligible to receive a protection visa, and any application from them must be rejected by the department and also by the Refugee Review Tribunal notwithstanding instances where Australia's nonrefoulement obligations and other international treaties ensure that we cannot and will not send them back to their countries of origin. Having been rejected by the department and/or the Refugee Review Tribunal as a consequence of the current law, the applicant must then appeal to the minister, who has the legal capacity to exercise a discretion as to whether the applicant should be granted a protection visa. The government seeks to remove the discretion of the minister in certain circumstances and substitute this ministerial discretion with a codified regime which will be the subject of judicial review.

The coalition says at the outset that for the minister to give away the capacity to exercise his discretion is a blatant abrogation of the responsibility that this parliament had vested in the minister for very cogent reasons. It is a cop-out at the highest level of authority that is vested in the minister. Senators will be aware that, when dealing with claims for refugee status, complementary protection refers to a state's obligations to nonrefugees—that is, people who do not satisfy the 1951 refugee convention definition—who are nonetheless in need of protection on the basis that they face serious violations of their human rights if sent back to their country of origin. As we know, a refugee is defined in the 1951 refugee convention, along with the 1967 protocol, as being:

... any person who … owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country …

Australia is a signatory to that convention.

The government claims that an objective of this bill is to amend the Migration Act 1958 to better meet Australia's human rights obligations with respect to nonrefoulement under international law, and that a key aspect of the bill is the reduction in reliance on ministerial intervention powers with respect to noncitizens seeking protection in Australia from the risk of harm overseas. The government also claims that this bill will eliminate a significant administrative deficiency in the visa application process, making the process more efficient, transparent and accountable.

The coalition recognises that there are always going to be some persons whose personal situations mean that they do not qualify under the refugee convention and who therefore cannot be considered in the protection visa process, even though a nonrefoulement obligation should arguably arise. Recent cases reported in the media about women who may be subject to genital mutilation or honour killings if they return to their home countries are prominent examples, and there are many other complex or one-off situations that may arise. Where an individual does not meet the refugee convention criteria, but is clearly at serious risk, the minister has the power to exercise his or her discretion. This safeguard has been in place for decades and there is no evidence to suggest that it has been anything other than effective. It is a tried and proven system which meets Australia's international obligations and which protects those who are in genuine need of such protection.

The minister has stated this bill will help Australia better meet its international obligations. He is not saying that Australia is not currently meeting our international obligations. In fact, the minister's office has confirmed that no-one who would be considered under the new provisions has previously failed to obtain a protection outcome under the current ministerial intervention arrangements—not one person. Between 1 January 2010 and 22 October 2010 the minister finalised 1,690 requests for intervention. Of those, the minister granted visas to a total of 438 people. According to the minister's office, of those 438 visas, only six satisfied the requirements of the proposed new complementary protection provisions.

In evidence given to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee inquiry, the Department of Immigration and Citizenship advised that of the 606 visas granted by the minister using section 417 powers in 2008-09 program, only 55 were granted out of the humanitarian program, and less than half of these cases involved nonrefoulement issues. Consistent with evidence previously provided to the Senate committee, DIAC and the minister's office have reconfirmed that they do not expect the numbers of applicants being granted protection visas under the complementary protection provisions to increase at all. The question is therefore this: why does the government need to introduce a statutory framework to deal with such a small number of cases?

It is pertinent at this point to note the seven main 'issues' that the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee identified from the written submissions it received in 2009. The issues were also referred to in the Parliamentary Library briefing note on the current bill. They include: the complexity of the test and/or the difficulty in meeting it, particularly the requirement that a person be at risk of irreparable harm; the distinction in the bill between personal and generalised violence, and the intention of the bill to disqualify applications on the basis of the risk to a person not being personal; the apparent unworkability of the death penalty provision, which required that the death penalty be carried out; the imposition of an additional intention criterion in the definitions of 'cruel or inhuman treatment or punishment' and 'degrading treatment or punishment' and the splitting up of the definitions; the inconsistency of proposed subsection 36(2C) with the non-derogable provisions of the CAT and the ICCPR; the undesirability of quantified terms of imprisonment in the existing statutory definition of 'serious offence'; and the exclusion of statelessness from the protection framework. It is interesting to note that the majority of these issues have not been addressed in the current bill.

We on this side of the Senate believe that the issue that is at the heart of the bill is the question of ministerial discretion and we further say that this bill is designed, in part, to transfer the exercise of ministerial discretion to a codified regime that will introduce appeal provisions which would not have been brought into play under the current provisions relating to ministerial discretion as such decisions are not appealable. We believe that empowering a minister to exercise his or her discretion to determine an outcome of a given issue is one of the most important facets of ministerial responsibility in a minister's duty to act in the public interest.

We also note that, in March 2004, there was a report tabled by the then Senate Select Committee on Ministerial Discretion in Migration Matters. In chapter 4 the report noted that the Commonwealth Ombudsman expressed the following view about access to parliamentarians and the use of ministerial discretionary powers:

One great strength of our political system is that members of parliament—Minister included—are members of the community and move broadly through the community. They listen to what people have to say and their knowledge of the world—their sagacity and their wisdom—and of deserving cases is triggered by what people have to say … It is a strength of the system that a Minister, for example, can go to a particular ethnic community function or to some other function and people can speak to him or her and attract his or her attention. But that inevitably leads to the allegation that the Minister has favoured the community that he or she has just visited as against a community that did not issue an invitation to the Minister. One can see that there is an element of partiality or favouritism but, as I said, on balance I think we regard that as one of the strengths of our system. It is one of the points of access to official and political power that, overall, we would prefer to preserve.

The report continues:

Most of the submissions to the Inquiry recognised the importance of maintaining the capacity for the Minister to exercise discretion as an instrument of last resort.

Chapter 4 then concludes:

Australia's rigorous approach to the selection of migrants harnesses the positive effects of human mobility while undercutting the illegal trade in people. The continuing success of our immigration programs depends on the support of the Australian public. This support in turn depends on the fairness, integrity and rigour of our migration programs. If the distinction between a well-managed and generous Migration Program and informal and unregulated movements breaks down, public confidence in the Migration Program, as well as our very successful policy of multiculturalism, would be undermined.

The Minister's discretionary powers must be seen in this context. They allow the Minister to exercise his or her judgement as to whether to overturn an outcome flowing from the Migration Act which may have lead to an unintended harsh result.

Without ministerial discretionary powers, considerable pressure would be placed on the rigorous migration selection criteria we have in place and we could be forced to take a less rigorous approach by lowering Australia's standards in the selection of migrants.

All this bill does is open up another avenue for onshore applications that goes well beyond the requirements of the refugee convention. The government, with this bill, run the risk of creating a further policy incentive for people smuggling while, by their own admission, the bill will not assist one extra genuine claimant. In stark contrast the current process, which includes ministerial discretion, maintains a flexibility that avoids these outcomes whilst affording protection to those who need it consistent with treaty and other obligations.

This bill is unnecessary, counterproductive and risks being represented as yet another softening of Australia's immigration laws, which sends a clear message that Australia is an easy target to people smugglers and unlawful noncitizens seeking entry. If the bill is passed a departmental decision not to grant complementary protection will be appealable. It seems that the lessons of the past have not been learned as this will inevitably mean that decisions may take many months if not years to be resolved if the initial decision is unfavourable and is appealed. This exacerbates an already fraught situation. For these reasons, the coalition will not be supporting the bill.

Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to add the Greens' contribution to the Migration Amendment (Complementary Protection) Bill 2011 and commend the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship on his commitment to introduce a system of complementary protection and finally bring Australia into line with other Western countries in meeting our core human rights protection obligations under international law beyond that of the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. I say this very seriously in relation to this piece of legislation because it is important for us to recognise our obligations under international law. Of course, it is somewhat ironic that we are debating this particular bill today, which would give necessary protections to people who do not necessarily fit the refugee convention, when at the same time—a quarter past 12—we have our Prime Minister meeting with Tony Abbott, the Leader of the Opposition, to discuss exactly how we should trash and undermine our obligations to the refugee convention. It is somewhat paradoxical that we can discuss the need for protection, the need to expand protection for vulnerable people, while at the same time, in another vacuum, discuss how we strip those rights away from people.

This legislation has taken two years to get to this place. I am thankful that it has come forward today. The Greens will be supporting it and I am disappointed that the opposition will not be. I also think members of the government need to strongly think about what laws we introduce into this country, what treaties and conventions we sign, and what we do to uphold our obligations under them. If it is right to introduce domestic legislation that upholds our obligations under the refugee convention, it is right that we stand by those conventions, that we stand by our domestic laws that uphold them, even when the going gets rough and even when people want to be drawn into the ugly politics, the race to the bottom of who can be the toughest, meanest and most cruel to asylum seekers. This current political debate is an absolute farce. What we should be doing is putting Australia in line with other countries in the world, in line with where we were 60 years ago when we led the way in standing up for human rights, in standing up for some of the world's most vulnerable people.

The term 'complementary protection' essentially refers to a state's protection obligations under international law to people who cannot be returned to their home country safely but who do not strictly fit under the definition of 'refugee' as defined by the refugee convention. Many other states in the world have ensured the introduction of this type of complementary protection, and it has taken Australia until today to seriously consider it. Given Australia is a signatory to the major United Nations human rights treaties, we have a commitment to upholding non-refoulement obligations under article 33 of the 1951 Geneva convention, which prohibits signatory states from returning people to a country where they would be prosecuted, killed, tortured or subjected to cruel and degrading treatment. Yet, as it currently stands, these complementary protection obligations that Australia is a signatory to are met only through section 417 of the Migration Act, whereby the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship has the non-reviewable, non-compellable power to use his personal discretion to grant protection visas. Obviously, going through that process has meant that the length of time to determine whether somebody is indeed in need of protection and should be given it has dragged on and on, and we see very vulnerable people caught up in the system. Amending the act to make it easier and clearer to uphold our obligations and set down the groundwork for ensuring that this type of complementary protection can be given will not just help the individuals in need but also help streamline the rest of the review and application processes for other people applying for protection visas.

While the minister is required to table any decision to intervene in parliament, he is under no obligation to explain or justify any decision not to exercise discretion, nor is there the presence of any merits review of the decisions made by the minister. That is obviously very worrying, and it is incredibly dangerous when we are talking about desperate people fleeing dangerous and life-threatening circumstances to continue to rely solely on a system of ministerial discretion that is poorly suited to protecting against nonrefoulement under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the conventions against torture and the conventions on the rights of the child.

Of course, we know that the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which is one of the international laws, will be breached if the government gets its way in amending the Migration Act in the broader sense to dump vulnerable people in a far-off land. Let us make sure that those types of protections are upheld regardless of whether children arrive here without their families on a boat or whether they arrive here without their families on a plane. We need to ensure that we protect the rights of children regardless of their mode of arrival. If they need protection, Australia should be big enough, wise enough and sensible enough to offer it to them.

Under the current legislation, there is of course an obvious lack of transparency, and this bill would go some way to dealing with those issues. Asylum seekers who do not fit the definition of 'refugee' as defined under the Geneva convention but who are in need of protection are currently forced to go through a lengthy and expensive process in order to have their actual claim to protection assessed at the ministerial level. As I said, this system will help to streamline that process. It will help to ease the pressures currently before the Refugee Review Tribunal, because you will not have to go through all of that process simply to get the ministerial intervention which should have been obvious from the start—that a young nine-year-old Vietnamese boy in detention in Darwin, who has not been given the opportunity to apply for a refugee protection visa but who is obviously a young boy without his family, should not be dumped back in Vietnam simply because Australia does not have a way of protecting him. This bill would help to ensure that we actually offer protection where protection is needed.

In 2006 former Senator Andrew Bartlett introduced a bill that sought to establish a new category of visa, known as 'complementary protection', to deal with claims made in Australia by people whose circumstances did not meet the refugee convention definition of a 'refugee' but nonetheless had compelling humanitarian or safety reasons as to why they could not be returned to their country of origin and did not have a place to go other than this country. This legislation basically mirrors that. It does not offer a different category but it does offer the opportunity for a protection visa under these new criteria. It should be noted that when former Senator Andrew Bartlett introduced that legislation only the Greens supported it. Both the Labor Party and the coalition dismissed it.

Although Australia has ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the optional protocol and the abolition of the death penalty, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhumane or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, we have failed to pass adequate legislative measures to comply with our non-refoulement obligations. So this is all about trying to get our house in order. As I said, it seems bizarre that we are talking about this at the same time as the government of the day is trying to rip away our domestic footing for upholding the rest of the protection elements under the refugee convention and the Convention on the Rights of the Child when it comes to refugee and asylum seeker children. For many years refugee advocates have argued that the refugee convention alone is inadequate in defining actual protection needs in the modern-day environment. The Refugee Council of Australia argued in their Position Paper on Complementary Protection:

As the Convention specifies that a person must face or fear persecution, that is they must be individually targeted for who they are, what they are or what they believe in, victims of such events are unlikely to qualify for protection.

So, of course, that is why we get reviews and reviews and reviews. I hear the opposition talk a lot about how clogged up the system is because people are having their cases reviewed. It is very difficult, unless we bring ourselves up to the standards of the rest of the world in how we understand the needs of protection, the complexities of people fleeing persecution, torture and degrading treatment, to avoid those types of lengthy processes.

Despite the Greens' obvious support for the objectives within this bill, we remain concerned that some wording contained within the bill could result in some applicants still falling through the gap when seeking protection. The Greens are concerned that proposed section 36(2A) of the bill does not explicitly enshrine all of Australia's non-refoulement obligations—in particular, we agree with the Australian Human Rights Law Resource Centre's submission that this section of the proposed bill does not reflect the full scope of children's rights which engage Australia's protection obligations. I would be interested to hear what the Australian Human Rights Law Resource Centre think about the government's proposed amendments to the Migration Act flagged on Friday. I assume they would be horrified at the idea that we are stripping absolute protections away.

It is well known that international law supports the extension of non-refoulement obligations based on the ICCPR, the Convention Against Torture, Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and the Convention on the Rights of the Child beyond the grounds contained within the bill. It is absolutely important that we continue to work to strengthen our role in the global community to protect our fellow human beings, not doing everything we can to run away from our legal and moral obligations.

While the explanatory memorandum refers to all three instruments, only the ICCPR seems to be explicitly referred to in the actual legislation before us—and that is a concern. Why aren't we prepared to stand strong when we talk about the rights of the child? Why aren't we prepared to stand strong when we talk about the rights of people not to have to be scraping for support after they have been tortured? Why aren't we, if we sign these international conventions, prepared to accept that that means not just a nice signature, not just a nice press conference with other world leaders, but the opportunity to ensure that Australia lifts standards in our region, lifts understanding in our own communities, that these are basic standards of how human beings should treat each other? Or that the government, the parliament of Australia, will stand by those standards—promote them, protect them and uphold them? The last couple of months have seen absolute disarray in the debate when it comes to what our obligations are under international law.

Concern around the standard of proof that an applicant is required to meet under proposed section 36(2)(aa) is also an issue that the Greens are worried about. I urge the government to reassess this. We have spoken to the government about this; it was in our report into the inquiry into this bill and the government needs to look at that. Amnesty International argued in its submission that the wording contained within this section of the bill:

… could lead to divergence and inconsistency in the interpretation of the requirements for complementary protection, in particular the dual conditions of the risk being 'real' as well as 'necessary and foreseeable'.

These are obviously issues that people have. This bill is not perfect, but it is absolutely important that we get this passed.

We also have concerns about the term 'irreparable harm' being used in way which seems to suggest that the minister must not only believe that there is a real risk that a person may be subjected to torture or another specified violation of human rights but that, if they were to be returned to a country, also that the violation will result in irreparable harm. I think some of the language in this bill should be reflected upon: 'necessary and foreseeable' and 'irreparable harm' set a threshold for protection that is much higher than that imposed by international human rights law, which usually only requires a 'real risk' of harm to be assessed.

Subsection 36(2A) outlines an exhaustive list of matters that are to be considered necessary requirements for complementary protection, and the Greens welcome, in particular, the inclusion of the risk of the death penalty being imposed as an eligibility criterion. I know this was not in the first version of the legislation, before the last election, but the government has taken that on board and looked at it in the new version, so that is a good thing. It would have been helpful for those other issues to be addressed as well. The definition is not precisely right but, as I said, I would prefer the Greens pass this legislation in the first instance than to have it held up any longer.

Another point I would like to touch on is the issue of statelessness. While I acknowledge that the government is aware of current and past failures to resolve the status of stateless people in a timely manner, the fact is that we are a signatory to both the Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. This means we have an obligation to develop mechanisms for recognising stateless people that come to Australia for protection. We know how many asylum seekers are detained in immigration detention centres across the country who, despite a very real risk of persecution and torture were they to be sent back to the places they have fled, the very nature of them being stateless means that the risk to them is even higher. And our current process by which we deal with their applications is long, confusing and complicated. So, for these people, our dealing with this issue and having a way of resolving that issue and upholding our obligations under the various conventions that deal with statelessness would make it much easier. It would mean these people would not have to spend years and years of their lives becoming even further damaged, which impacts on their already fragile nature.

The last point in debating such a historic piece of legislation is that it would have been wonderful to have done it two years ago. We must not forget the ongoing commitment and advocacy of all the refugee, church and legal organisations, as well as the many individuals, who have lobbied both the previous and the current governments over the years to introduce a form of complementary protection to finally bring Australia in line with most other Western countries in adhering to our protection obligations, as defined in international law. While we remain concerned about it, the complementary protection model before us will not adequately address all of the holes in our overall protection framework. We recognise the need to pass the legislation that is long overdue.

Finally, there is the matter of all of the long, hard fighting and lobbying that the sector has put into the issue of women who face persecution simply because they are women and are sent back to precarious places in the rest of the world, and children who are unable to apply for refugee protection but are nonetheless here without their parents and need to be offered safety. Considering all of the groups that have fought so hard for this, the question to the government is: is all of this work going to be undone; is it all going to unravel? If you had it your way none of these people would be able to apply for protection in the first place, because you want to send them to a far off land without any guarantees for their protection, without any guarantees that the place they are being sent to will look after them and that they will not necessarily be sent back into harm's way, when the simplest thing for us to do is to stand by the conventions and the international treaties we have signed. If we have signed the refugee convention, the convention against torture and the convention on the rights of the child, we must abide by those because they are important instruments we signed. We signed them because we believed that it was the right thing to do. Don't undo all of this good work just because Tony Abbott has goaded you in a race to the bottom.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is an important debate and I want to support my colleague in what she has said in relation to this bill. Whilst I appreciate that, unlike other treaties, perhaps the refugee convention is not one that is absolute and cannot be derogated from, it seems to me that the government is being a bit hypocritical in bringing forward this bill talking about supporting international covenants and yet is currently in the throes of sending refugee applicants to a country that does not support the refugee convention. I know Ms Gillard has promised in the past that she would never send any refugees or asylum seekers to a country that did not support the refugee convention, which, like her promise 'There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead', is simply one of those promises that Ms Gillard does not think she has to abide by. So, I wonder why it is that we are taking these steps in legislation and yet it gives government more power in an area where they have proved that they do not really follow the commitments they have made previously and the commitments they have made to the refugee convention.

The other matter I want to raise is that in all of the talk about refugees and asylum seekers and where they will be sent for offshore processing, I do not think it comes through clearly enough that Australia and all Australians support the intake of refugees into this country. We have picked a figure of almost 14,000. Whether that figure is right or wrong is perhaps a question for another debate, but we as a country have said that we will take about 14,000 refugees every year. But the concern with the boat people coming from Malaysia and Indonesia is not about not accepting refugees coming in—all Australians accept that refugees should be allowed into this country—it is really a question about queue jumpers.

There are millions of people living in squalid refugee camps right around the world who have been determined by the UNHCR to be refugees. There is no question about it, they have fled persecution, death and things that put their lives and their families' lives in danger. But they do not get to Australia because, whilst they wait in these squalid camps right around the world, some other people are coming in ahead of them. The people who are applying may well be refugees and may well have very good cases. They all do, however, seem to be quite wealthy, because we know they are paying people smugglers ten, fifteen or twenty thousand dollars to get here. So they are clearly would-be Australians with plenty of money. Unfortunately, a lot of those existing around the world in the squalid refugee camps do not have a lazy $15,000 they can pull out of their pockets and give to a people smuggler and get to Australia tomorrow. They have to wait, in many cases for years, before they ever get the opportunity of coming to places like Australia. This is part of the debate which, regrettably, gets lost in Australia. Those of us who are interested in the debate should be better aware—and I am surprised that the media does not make this point more often. It is not that the coalition is against refugees; quite the contrary. We welcome refugees in accordance with the rules. But, every time we take a boat person from Malaysia or Indonesia who has paid a lot of money to a criminal to get them here, we are blocking out a genuine refugee who has been patiently waiting their turn in accordance with the rules in some squalid camp somewhere around the world. That person will have to wait another year or another 10 years for every boat person that we allow in, jumping the queue. I think that needs to be better considered by those who are so forceful in advocating the plight of the boat people from Indonesia or Malaysia. With that, I support Senator Cash in her comments on the bill and indicate that I will be opposing it.

Mark Arbib (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Social Housing and Homelessness) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank all the senators for their contributions to the second reading debate on the Migration Amendment (Complementary Protection) Bill 2011. I remind the chamber that this bill amends the Migration Act to eliminate a significant administrative hole in our protection visa application process. I remind senators that the bill will build on Australia's framework for assessing claims for protection under the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and provide a protection visa decision-making process that is more efficient, transparent and accountable. The amendments in this bill are important and necessary to address inefficiencies in the current protection framework.

This bill permits claims made by protection visa applicants which may engage Australia's non-refoulement obligations to be considered under a simple, integrated and timely protection visa application process. Under the Migration Act as it currently stands, only those people seeking protection for one of the five reasons outlined in the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees—race, religion, nationality, social group or political opinion—are eligible to receive a protection visa through the usual process. Applicants who fall outside these categories are not considered refugees and consequently their applications must be rejected by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship and also by the Refugee Review Tribunal.

But some of these people are fleeing significant harm, such as women fleeing so-called 'honour killings'. These people can fall outside the categories recognised by our current protection visa process. Under the current system these people, who have often fled their countries in fear of their lives, must go through several administrative processes knowing that they are going to be rejected, in order to access ministerial public interest powers. At present we make them go through a process of applying, failing, seeking review and then failing again, just so that they are then able to apply to the minister for personal intervention.

I commend the bill to the chamber.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.