Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last week, I made the most satisfying emotional phone call to a constituent that I have had the privilege of making since being in this place. It was to the Lee family of Glen Waverley—David and Jessica, and their three kids, Daniel, Brian and Richard—to give them good news. Following a personal meeting I had the day before with Minister Hawke, Assistant Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, he contacted me to say he had agreed to intervene in their case. They were crying and they could not speak. It was a desperate situation. They had lived in our country for 9½ years. They arrived as business migrants and through a series of misadventures, including bad advice from their lawyers and migration agents, for which they were ripped off $100,000, they had run out of legal options and they were two weeks from having to show the department their plane tickets to go back to South Korea or be locked up in immigration detention. People told me this case was impossible because the minister had previously refused to intervene. I met them and I felt that it was unfair. They were integrated into the community.

I wish to record my thanks to the member for Mitchell for agreeing to meet, for listening, for agreeing to reconsider the case and for reading all the personal letters, including from the Archbishop of Melbourne, on behalf of all Victorian bishops, the church, and nearly 100 members of the community. I visited them on Saturday and it was like seeing a different family, particularly Jessica, the mum—the relief was palpable. I thank the assistant minister.