Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Citizenship, Customs and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Well, I make the point: we could've moved the third reading yesterday, and the bill would've been in the Senate by now. We're here debating it in good faith, but I just need to correct the record: no-one was denied the call. You were not in the chamber.

I do appreciate the genuine concern and intent, and I'll just address the new issue raised. The first amendment would require the minister to be reasonably satisfied of both criteria in b(i) and b(ii). By itself, that would require the minister to be reasonably satisfied both that a noncitizen of the kind specified and an instrument may overstay and, if the event had been occurring when the visa application was made, the visa may not have been granted. But, when coupled with the next two amendments, it would render the provision practically and likely unworkable. Changing 'may' to 'would' in (i) and (ii) would lift the threshold for the test to a definitive view—that is, the noncitizen would overstay and the visa would not have been granted. At the very best you could say that would require a high degree of fact finding and evidence re individuals to be put to the minister. But, in practical terms, as I made the point in the previous amendment commentary, that's a threshold which is rarely if ever passed in any visa grant. Every visa that the Department of Home Affairs grants—literally millions and millions a year for people to come and go in a globalised economy and society—relies on a risk based judgement about the likelihood of someone overstaying.

I'll finish on this point. Despite some of the hyperbole in the media commentary by others outside this chamber, this bill is a sensible step. It's necessary to maintain the integrity of the visa system. It's not a radical proposition. It's core to the entire operation of the migration system that, when someone is granted a temporary visa to Australia and they come to Australia on a temporary visa, the Australian community is confident that they intend a temporary visit. A temporary visa means a temporary visit. In circumstances where it becomes manifestly obvious that large numbers of people would not or may not intend a temporary visit, then the government needs the ability to respond, and currently the minister has the power to respond visa by visa, individually reviewing or cancelling individual visas. The government maintains that this is a sensible, necessary measure and, frankly, it avoids the cancellation en masse of large numbers of visas by simply suspending the ability of the visa holder to enter Australia.

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