Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I suspect this disallowance motion moved by Senator Bartlett will not be successful. I am unsure how those on the other side of this chamber are going to vote, but I have a feeling they are going to vote it down. Senator Bartlett has raised a number of points, but if you look at the overall effect of this regulation it seems to be a cut that is based on cost—in other words, the department has come to a view that these are costly issues and that, as a consequence, it wants to revamp the visa system. It is not appropriate criteria in all events to look only at cost and I think in this instance that has been the main driver behind some of these changes, particularly this one.

Senator Bartlett has made a couple of particularly interesting points which I think can be supported by the opposition. Those points really go to the fact that there has been a long history of support for family migration, particularly the type provided here, for a range of reasons. Those articulated by Senator Bartlett go to issues of multicultural policies, which Labor has supported and pursued vigorously and which I think this government has abandoned. But when you dissect this particular initiative of the government, you could then say that on balance it may be a constructive regulatory change. While it will restrict a percentage of people from being eligible to apply, the basis for the amendment is to address integrity issues around the visa, so it seems sensible on face value. The amendment to this regulation reduces the number of other remaining relatives an applicant may have from three to none. Prior to the amendment, an applicant could have three other remaining relatives and be eligible for the visa, as long as they were estranged and had not been in contact with them for a certain period of time.

In many cases the department of immigration was thus forced to prove a negative—that is, the department had to prove the relatives had not been in contact. Of course, that can be a costly and difficult exercise. For the special concession visa, it would appear to be an unnecessary and inappropriate use of departmental resources and time to prove that negative.

On that basis, at first glance the opposition considered that there might be merit in the amendment. When we looked at it in a little bit more detail we expected to find that the government had mounted the case. Labor understand that if people miss out on this concessional visa, due to this new regulation, they do not necessarily miss out on being able to come to Australia. It is a special concessional visa targeted at a specific group of people with special circumstances. But, when we lifted the skin from the custard, when we looked a bit more deeply, it was obvious that the minister has not made an argument to say that the regulation is better policy than that which is currently in existence. The minister at no stage in the argument being used to defend the regulation has argued that there will be fairer outcomes or more just outcomes. In fact, there is a policy vacuum in terms of what would be a better or more just outcome.

The argument about the difficulties in verifying the rules that applied before this regulation was introduced is not an argument about the policy or the reasons for the concessional visa. It is an argument about cost. These are costs associated with having to check that a number of relatives have had no contact with each other. But we are dealing with what is very much a concessional visa. It is not unreasonable for the minister to want to take those issues into account—that is, the reasons why the concessional visa should or should not be granted—and not balance those simply by saying that the costs far outweigh the position. Of course there will always have to be a balance. We are not saying that there should be no consideration of compliance costs with this sort of concessional application. But we would expect the government to argue its case more fulsomely. I suspect we would not be debating this now if the government had been able to make the case as to why, in terms of both the policy and the compliance costs, this concessional visa should be removed and dealt with in another way.

Labor, of course, does not object at all to compliance costs—they are a necessary part of the department—and the integrity of the system being matters taken into account in relation to visas. It is reasonable, in fact, to undertake due diligence and due examination to make sure that people are obeying the rules. But it seems that the balance here has tipped to the other side. In other words, the evaluation of how this concessional visa has worked has not taken into consideration (a) the number of people who would be affected and (b) how you will then deal with those people in a much fairer or more just system. They are simply saying that compliance costs seem to be prohibitive and as a consequence we can remove this type of concessional visa.

When we look at it, there are cases where we have some sympathy for wanting to reduce the compliance burden on the department. But we also have some sympathy for the point of view that was articulated by Senator Bartlett. There has to be, as I have said, that balance struck. If you have other relatives out there somewhere in the world but you are genuinely isolated and have had no contact with them for a substantial period of time, then the reasons for having this concessional visa do apply to you.

If we are going to knock out the people in this situation because of the administrative burden, we need to know how many people are going to be affected. We need to ask for the information and the department needs to provide it. Information from this department to enable us to make those assessments as to whether there are alternative ways to deal with this has been scant. We can only reach the conclusion that the department does not examine these issues in great detail but makes administrative decisions based on costs rather than on the actual issues themselves.

The balance that we as legislators have to make is between, in this instance, the compliance costs that they say are burdensome—as I understand their argument—and need to be reduced, and the number of people who will be affected and who may have to find some other mechanism and could genuinely use this concessional visa. It is impossible, in some parts, to make that assessment, when much of the information to base the argument on should come from the government and they are not providing it in a way that provides a sound reason why this regulation should be removed. Until such time as they can produce that evidence—produce the reasons, produce the costs and tell us how many of these people there are and that they will be dealt with in a more humane or different way—then Labor is not in a position to support this regulation.