April 16, 2024
Home Affairs says people smugglers could take advantage of Labor's bid to black-ban entire nationalities under its deportation bill by telling vulnerable people there is no legal way for them to travel to Australia.
A Senate inquiry into the latest detention crackdown laws has heard the bill the government tried to rush through the last sitting of parliament was seriously flawed.
REPORT Page 13
People smugglers 'could exploit ban'
Home Affairs says people smugglers could take advantage of Labor's bid to black-ban entire nationalities under its deportation bill by telling vulnerable people there is no legal way for them to travel to Australia.
With the government facing another High Court test tomorrow on whether it can legally detain people who refuse to co-operate with moves to deport them, a Senate inquiry into the government's latest detention crackdown laws has heard that the bill the government tried to rush through the last sitting of parliament was seriously flawed.
Immigration Minister Andrew Giles' controversial bill has three main parts: threatening jail time for people who don't co-operate with their own deportation; revisiting protection findings against people who have fled perilous countries; and blocking people from countries that don't accept the involuntary return of their own citizens.
"Some people smugglers may seek to use some of the measures in the proposed legislation to market their services to vulnerable potential irregular immigrants, suggesting there is no legal way for them to travel to Australia," the Home Affairs submission said in reference to the third measure.
The department said the bill would also enable it to more easily deport nearly 5000 people refusing to co-operate. The submission added that the risk of people smugglers exploiting the laws could be reduced by communicating the exemptions to the bans directly to Iranians, Russians and others from nations that refuse the involuntary return of their citizens - namely, that the ban would not apply to immediate family members of citizens and permanent residents.
Opposition home affairs spokesman James Paterson said the department had admitted what the Coalition had previously warned.
"This bill risks perversely encouraging desperate people to get on boats again," he said.
Rear Admiral Brett Sonter of Operation Sovereign Borders said the submission did not relate to any specific element of the bill and the risk was not new.
"We know that people smugglers look at any changes, whether they are real or perceived, and they sell them," he said.
Earlier this month, the arrival on Australian shores of a third boat of asylum seekers in four months added to Labor's political headache as it grapples with the High Court's landmark ruling last November that made indefinite immigration detention illegal and led to the subsequent release of at least 151 former detainees.
Giles refused to comment on the case on ABC radio yesterday but said the government "shouldn't be frustrated by an individual's refusal to co-operate in terms of our capacity to deport them".
"What these [provisions] do is to apply to a very small group of people with appropriate safeguards," he said.
Home Affairs officials facing the inquiry said there were up to 200 people in immigration detention who were refusing to co-operate with moves to deport them, nearly 4500 people on a pathway-toremoval visa in the community and about 250 more people - including those released following the High Court decision in November - who could be affected.
Australian Human Rights Commission president Rosalind Croucher called the entire bill "problematic", while the Immigration Advice and Rights Centre warned that domestic violence victims placed on bridging visas could be affected as there were no other appropriate visas for them.
'The bill risks encouraging desperate people to get on boats.' James Paterson, opposition home affairs spokesman
