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

I want to acknowledge the extraordinary effort of three men from south-east Melbourne who walked from Dandenong to Canberra over the last few weeks—yes, they walked. I hosted them in parliament this week. They're Afghan Australians who made this journey to highlight the ongoing trauma post the return of the Taliban and the moral obligation of our country to bring to safety those people who worked with, and risked their lives in Afghanistan for, Australia over many years—the locally engaged employees and their families.

Decisions regarding individual visas are made by the Department of Home Affairs, not MPs, and I don't envy them that almost impossible task. The government has employed hundreds of new staff to address the backlog, and last year a record 6,935 permanent humanitarian visas were granted to people from Afghanistan—the largest share by any group in the humanitarian program. The former government made multiple announcements but didn't actually deliver on those announcements and didn't fill the program every year. It was too little too late, and the visa mess that we have inherited is enormous.

The hard truth of course is that Australia will never be able to give permanent refugee places to everyone who is eligible, to everyone we would like to. The return of the Taliban means that there are simply too many people. There are more than 170,000 applications for the limited places each year, and that is from Afghanistan alone. The pressures on the refugee program are enormous: split-family cases—and I'm still trying to secure the wives and children for people who were evacuated two years ago; single women with close relatives in Australia; and persecuted minorities, such as Hazaras and others. Even amongst these groups, locally engaged employees and their families must remain a priority. They make a wonderful contribution to Australia and my community. Their children are becoming school captains. They are starting vibrant businesses, employing people and growing wealth. They are pursuing education and working right across the economy.

I've been clear that Australia cannot grant visas to people who are physically in Afghanistan. No member of this House could defend to 25 million Australians the granting of permanent visas to our country to people in a terrorist state when you can't do the biometrics. That has never been the purpose of the humanitarian program; the purpose of the program is to protect people who can't return to their country. It's a difficult reality. But the government is implementing the locally engaged employees review by Vivienne Thom, which will see more LEE certifications granted over the next few months, but even amongst this we do need to prioritise locally engaged employees and their families and increase the overall refugee intake over the coming years to honour our obligations to these people. Part of that must be, I believe—and it's not government policy yet—a review of the definition of 'family'.