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

The amendment is well intentioned but frankly unworkable. It provides an open ended, unquantified suggestion that executive government would be compelled to issue a number of humanitarian visas linked to a random number of people from a given country who'd received temporary visas.

The number of humanitarian entrants remains a matter for executive government. It's set thoughtfully and carefully through the budget process published in the budget papers. The government increased for four years the number of places to 20,000 per annum, up from 2022-23. In particular, as the member well knows, that was to accommodate people who'd worked for the Australian government for DFAT or served with Defence in Afghanistan, and we're more than honouring that commitment. We've committed to a minimum 26,500 places over four years. We've already exceeded 30,000 places. My electorate is home to the largest community of Australians born in Afghanistan of any in this parliament. It's budgeted in advance and, importantly, it's linked to planning and service provision, to ensure that vulnerable people settle into Australia well.

I'll choose my words carefully in observing that humanitarian migrants, at the kind of scale you're talking about, don't settle in your electorate. They settle in communities like mine. And it means an enormous amount to the people I and many of my colleagues represent that the humanitarian program is done in an orderly way, where the settlement infrastructure, schools, language schools and trauma support services can keep pace. With respect, the proposition that you're putting forward completely destroys the ability of the settlement services sector to do that. It's well meaning. It might get you in the newspaper. But, in effect, it could be a giant spending measure. It's unreasonable, which restricts the ability of the minister to exercise these powers without a new appropriation of potentially billions and billions of dollars. The core point remains. The government's view is that this is necessary to protect the integrity of the visa system. I restate in closing: it's not a controversial proposition that, when someone receives a temporary visa to come to Australia, the Australian people remain confident that they are coming for a temporary purpose, not for another purpose.

Question negatived.

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