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

Can I just thank Senator McCarthy for an incredibly moving speech and thank her for bringing those really important stories to the attention of the Senate today.

Many in this chamber will have received emails from an increasingly desperate number of temporary visa holders that are currently stranded overseas and unable to return to Australia due to the COVID-19 travel ban. Our borders closed on 20 March, so it's been three months that so many people who call Australia home have been trapped overseas—three months that people have been separated from their partners, three months that many parents have been separated from their children, three months that people have been separated from their homes, their friends, their pets, their jobs, their businesses and their lives in Australia.

There are so many stories that have been shared with my office, from people like Chaithra Shankar, who rushed to India after her mother was diagnosed with cancer and had to undergo immediate surgery. Her husband and four-year-old son stayed at home in Melbourne. She planned to be away for a week but couldn't get back before the borders closed. She writes:

My son has never stayed away from me for such a long period and is too young to completely comprehend the reason behind this … He is crying daily in the video call requesting me to return back … It's so painful to watch him like that … I have lost all faith … I'm dying every day … I can't live without him ... I just want to come back to my son.

Chaithra's requests for a travel exemption have been rejected 22 times by the government. There is also Londa James, who arrived with her two children, aged four and 16, to start work as a teacher in Melbourne in February. Her eight-year-old daughter's passport was delayed, so her husband and daughter stayed in Abu Dhabi to wait for her passport to arrive. Then the borders closed. She writes: 'My concern is I've never been away from my children for such a long time. My daughter is now displaying changes in her behaviour and signs of anxiety as a result of the separation. We have two medical reports as proof of this to support our application in the hope that there would be some mercy shown to us.' She's still unable to come to Australia.

Then there's Urooj Usman, who took her two children to see her dying father in Pakistan. Her husband stayed in Australia. She booked a flight that would land in Australia before the borders closed, but her flight was delayed—by just two hours—so the airline turned her and her children around in Dubai. She writes:

Every single passing day is increasing my anxiety and pain. It’s been three months now I am separated from my husband and my kids are separated from their father. This situation is very stressful and overwhelming.

Urooj has been rejected six times from returning to Australia but has just received a permanent residency approval. But to become a permanent resident Urooj needs to lodge the application that she has been approved for from within Australia. Of course, she can't because she's stranded overseas. Perversely, if she had that permanent residency, Urooj would be able to come home immediately, without needing an exemption.

These families have all applied for travel exemptions under the 'compelling and compassionate' category and have had all their applications rejected by the government multiple times. Why? How are these cases not compelling and worthy of compassion? Without any publicly available criteria on how these and many other requests are being triaged and assessed, we simply have no way of knowing why the government is rejecting these claims. So I ask the government now: why are you blocking parents from being reunited with their young children? Why are you stopping children from returning to their schools? Why are you tearing families and their lives apart? When will the government publicly release the criteria by which temporary visa holders are having their applications for travel ban exemptions assessed? At the very least, if you've got a home here, a job here or immediate family here, you should be allowed to return to Australia. It's time to bring these people home. In fact, it's long past time.

Next I want to talk about people who are stranded overseas on an expired bridging visa B. Like other temporary visa holders, they have their homes, their jobs, their businesses, their partners, their children and their lives in Australia. However, these visas have a time limit on them, and, despite these people's best efforts to get back to Australia before the borders closed, they became stranded and their visas have now expired. They are people like Henrietta Haldane, who writes:

I moved to Australia in 2017 to be with my daughter who is an Australian Citizen … I came on holiday to Japan for 3 weeks to visit my son on a Bridging Visa B, which expired on the 27th May … My son has submitted the exemption form 8 times, only to be rejected … I am 80 years old and suffer from high blood pressure, so this stress is not doing me any favours. I just want to go back to my home in Sydney and to my daughter.

There's Ruchita Patel, who writes:

We came to India on a Bridging Visa B, which expired on the 20th of May ... I am stuck here with my 8 year old son ... My husband is there in Australia ... My son is missing his school too ... My husband is struggling alone from the last 3 months in this pandemic situation and we are desperate to meet him ASAP.

Ruchita's son is in year 3 at the Bomaderry Public School in Nowra, New South Wales, and has now missed almost two terms of school. Or there's Rafay Jameel, stranded in Pakistan, who writes:

I have been living in Australia for more than 7 years... I have a job where my employer desperately needs me back. I have a house I am still paying rent and all the utility bills for. I am on Bridging Visa B which expired on 26 May. I am extremely worried and going through depression because if I don’t come back soon I am afraid all my 7 years of hard work will be lost and I will be left with nothing.

These families and these people have invested their time, energy, skills and passion into Australia. They are part of our communities, they are part of our schools, they are part of our businesses, and they are guests in our country. They pay their taxes, but they don't have access to social security or Medicare. They are here under their own steam. They love Australia and proudly look forward to the day when, hopefully, they can become permanent residents and citizens of our country. They're expressing a great trauma at being ripped from their homes and lives during a once-in-a-generation pandemic. They simply cannot understand why they are being blocked at every turn from returning to their homes, with no end in sight, with no point in time to focus on and with nothing to stay hopeful for.

I call on the government to urgently announce new visa arrangements for people stranded overseas on expired bridging visa Bs, so that they can return to their children, their partners, their families, their homes, their work and their lives here in Australia. It's just not good enough for decisions that impact on temporary visa holders to be made on an arbitrary basis by an unaccountable public official, without any publicly-released criteria being made available so that people can understand why their applications are being rejected.

There is simply no need to prolong the harm that is being caused, to prolong the distress and the trauma that is being caused. These people all understand they would need to be quarantined for two weeks when they arrive back in Australia and most of them have indicated that they are very happy to pay any costs associated with that. They just want to return home to their lives and their families and their jobs in this country, which we have invited them into as our guests. We're a better country than this and we need to do better.