Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to discuss the Migration Amendment (Giving Documents and Other Measures) Bill 2023. The opposition, at this stage, will be giving support to some major aspects of this bill, and we are still in discussion with the government on one part of it, on which we are seeking further clarification because we are concerned that, as has happened with other elements of migration under the first 12 months of this government, there could be serious, unintended consequences, and we just want to seek clarification around that.

The first parts of this bill are about making it clear when the minister or the government has to contact someone who could be impacted when it comes to the cancellation of a visa. For cancellation related decisions and actions, the amending legislation will make it clear that the person affected must be notified in writing and in the ways specified in the regulations. This is to make clear and to reinforce existing mechanisms which ensure that affected persons have the best chance of actually receiving the relevant documents. We have been advised in briefings that this will help limit the amount of appeals that take place in this area, and that is something that we support. We obviously want to ensure that, when the government or the minister makes a decision, it can't be tied up in knots due to the fact that there are legal arguments about whether documents were or weren't received. We want it very clear that, where all necessary steps have been taken, the government then is obviously able to provide the advice that they want to, always ensuring, of course, that there is natural justice and that there are review rights where necessary.

The part of the bill which we are concerned about and seeking clarification on is with regard to those who can avail themselves of protection from a third country but might seek protection in Australia, and we want to ensure that this change does not lead to two things. First, by saying that the department can be the initial decision-maker on this, we want to ensure that this does not lead to an ability for people to avail themselves of judicial rights because the decision has been made by the department rather than the minister. Now, we understand that, ultimately, the minister makes the decision, but by putting in a step process we want to ensure that that does not open up other legal avenues, Ultimately, we want the decision to remain with the minister. If the minister has to do a little bit more work, that would stop the opening up of that ability for people to seek other avenues to appeal, which we think would actually be detrimental to what the government is seeking to do.

We understand that nearly half of these cases relate to minors, but we also want some clarification on what it would mean to the other 50 per cent, who are adults, and, with regard to the minors, what it would mean to their parents. We are seeking clarification from the government on that, but at this stage we are of a mind to oppose this section of the bill unless we can get the guarantees and the certainty that we require. What we don't want to do, obviously, is, in one part of this bill, clarify and make it harder for people to use the avenues of the Migration Review Tribunal or the courts on technicalities and then, in the other part of the bill, open up the ability of people to use the Migration Review Tribunal or the courts to seek to undermine the minister's decision. So we will await that further advice and then advise the government of our final position on this bill.

On the latter part: the reason we want this further clarification is that, when it comes to immigration, the government, sadly, is resorting to tried and true processes and practices which we think weren't what they took to the Australian people at the last election. I'll just go through a couple of examples of that.

First of all, there is their 'big Australia' approach. We now know that the government is seeking, this year and over the next four years, to bring in 1.5 million people to this nation, and yet they have no plan whatsoever to deal with the impact that will have on housing and on rent, when we have a housing and rental crisis. There is no plan when it comes to infrastructure. As a matter of fact, the only plan when it comes to infrastructure is to cut infrastructure in the budget. And all this is taking place when businesses continue to cry out for skills.

So their 'big Australia' plan isn't addressing the skills shortages; all it's doing is making a bad situation worse when it comes to housing, to rents and to congestion—especially in our major capital cities—without doing anything to address the skill shortages that businesses are facing. Where in fact they are seeking to address skill shortages—for instance, in the aged-care sector—they are using labour agreements which are designed to do two things. One is to enable easy entry for the unions. That's what the labour agreement actually states—that you have to, if you are running an aged-care business, provide easy access for the unions. So your John Setkas and their equivalents will be marching into your aged-care residence. That's absolutely what it's designed to do. Not only that, but, if the people who run the aged-care facility want to attend the meeting with John Setka or his equivalent, they have to say nice things—

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order. The shadow minister will just pause. Whilst I have given him some latitude, I'm going to ask him to return, basically, to the bill before the House, which doesn't mention any individuals' names. He has had a fairly good go. I will just draw him back—if he could make it relevant to the bill.

Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thanks, Speaker. Yes, I'm happy to make it relevant to the bill. It's this part of the bill where we're just worried about unintended consequences where, rather than the minister making those final decisions, the department will initially make decisions and then ultimately they would go to the minister, and those unintended consequences we're seeing in other areas, like what the government has been doing with the labour migration agreement that they're putting in place with the aged-care sector, which we think will be detrimental to that sector and we wouldn't like to see the unintended consequences that we're seeing there occurring in this bill. There are other areas also, which I pointed out, where we're seeing unintended consequences as well—for instance, with the 'big Australia' approach which is being taken.

So we will await further advice on the last element of this bill. We appreciate the fact that the government has provided us with a briefing on this bill, and we look forward to the second briefing on this specific section of this bill that we have concerns on, and then we will notify the government on what our final position will be with regard to this bill.

Debate adjourned.