TRANSCRIPT
A parliamentary committee has recommended the government pass its controversial bill threatening non-citizens with prison if they don't cooperate with their deportation.
The bill gives the government power to force immigration detainees to comply with their removal from Australia, with a mandatory minimum 12-month jail term for those who don't cooperate.
The only other recommendation was that the Minister considers community impacts when designating a country as a removal concern country - a power that allows the Minister to impose a blanket ban on granting visas to people from nations whose governments refuse to accept the return of deported citizens.
Opposition home affairs spokesperson James Paterson told the ABC he supports some of the legislation.
“We recognize there's a public policy problem here when there are people who are found not to be genuine refugees, who refused to cooperate with their own removal, and that means they can languish in Australia for many years longer than they should. The government does need powers to deal with that.”
But was concerned about the power to designate a removal country of concern.
“This bill does grant extraordinary powers to the Minister for Immigration, and actually has very little checks and balances or oversight or restraints on those powers. And while sometimes powers like that can be justified by circumstances, we think it requires robust oversight and control to make sure that it's not misused.”
Greens immigration spokesperson David Shoebridge, who was part of the committee, says there was an overwhelming opposition to the bill during the inquiry.
“Of more than 100 submissions that we received in this inquiry from organizations, hundreds more from individuals, not a single submission, apart from that provided by the government, said this bill should be passed. It's wrong in principle, it's wrong in practice, and it's cruel by design.”
Executive Director of Refugee Legal David Manne says he's surprised the committee recommended passing the legislation.
“It's quite extraordinary that the committee in this context should be supporting this bill, given that it has been overwhelmingly condemned by the community, including by experts, has been draconian, being highly discriminatory, very dangerous, and extreme over-reach. A bill that simply cannot be fixed is fundamentally flawed, and needs to be totally rejected by the Senate.”
In March, Labor attempted to rush through laws, but it was opposed by the coalition and some crossbenchers calling for further scrutiny.
The Coalition has dissented in the inquiry, demanding amendments to the legislation that would regulate the powers given to the immigration minister.
Mr Paterson told the ABC the ball is in the government's court.
“They tried to ram this through the Parliament in 72 hours and tried to prevent this inquiry occurring. But as a result of the inquiry, we now know of the 118 submitters to the inquiry, 117 opposed the bill. But government senators made no effort to kind of reckon with that evidence and to propose amendments. In good faith we proposed amendments which we think improve the bill. The ball is in the government's court. We'll wait and see what they have to say before we determine our final position.”
Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth told Channel Seven the opposition should pass the bill.
“The Committee recommended to pass the Bill and I'd just like to say that the Coalition has to stop playing politics with this, which is what this has all been about, because, of course, in March they voted for it in the House of Representatives and then they blocked it in the Senate, then they delayed the bill, then they wanted to recall Parliament to bring the Bill on. And now I'm not clear whether they will support the Bill or not. They've had many different positions, and it is still unclear about whether they support the Government's right to remove those on a removal pathway. It's a pretty simple concept and I hope that the Opposition will see fit and not play politics in the Senate with this Bill.”
Mr Shoebridge says the Greens won't support the bill.
“For weeks now, we've had the government making the claim that this legislation is urgent, yet they have no credible basis to put that claim forward. We do know that this legislation, if it had passed would already be impacting on thousands and thousands of people in our community. This is not legislation that the greens or any political party, the coalition or otherwise, should be supporting rushing through Parliament at any point.”
