Coalition wants humanitarian overhaul of deportation bill
The Coalition is demanding the government rein in the toughest conditions of its deportation bill by beefing up safeguards for families visiting from certain nations and foreigners resisting deportation.
In a Senate inquiry report on the deportation bill that Labor attempted to rush through the last parliamentary sittings, the opposition criticised the government’s “flagrant disregard” for legal groups and Iranian, South Sudanese and Zimbabwean communities who condemned the bill.
Immigration Minister Andrew Giles is facing a laundry list of recommended changes to the controversial bill.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
“The concerns of multicultural communities need to be heard,” Coalition senator and inquiry committee member Paul Scarr said. “Diaspora groups were blindsided by this bill.”
The opposition’s humanitarian push to soften the deportation laws comes as its frontbench accuses the government of failing to protect the community from criminals released into the community after the High Court decision last November outlawed indefinite immigration detention.
The Senate’s report on Labor’s latest workaround laws to deal with the High Court fallout comes three days ahead of another critical legal ruling that could release dozens more from immigration detention.
The latest High Court challenge, from a detainee given the pseudonym ASF17, will resolve whether foreigners resisting attempts to remove them can be released into the community.
Coalition senator Paul Scarr helped draft recommendations to overhaul the bill.Credit: Oscar Colman
After the latest challenge was lodged, Immigration Minister Andrew Giles introduced a bill in March threatening up to five years jail for unco-operative detainees, and banning entire nationalities from visiting Australia if their country refused to accept citizens being involuntarily returned.
Despite dozens of submissions and testimony from multicultural communities, the human rights watchdog, the ombudsman and former immigration officials saying the bill was draconian and unworkable, Labor senators proposed no changes to the bill, but recommended Giles “considers community impacts” when banning entire nationalities from visiting Australia if their governments refused to accept forced returns of their citizens.
Jana Favero from the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre described the Labor senator’s report as a disgrace. “It’s outrageous and undemocratic that the government members of the Senate committee have turned their back on the overwhelming evidence and opposition to this bill,” Favero said.
While the Greens and independent senator David Pocock urged parliament not to pass the bill, the Coalition senators said in their dissenting report that they supported the intent of the bill but wanted greater protections put in place.
Among a laundry list of recommendations, the Coalition wants the minister to consider the best interests of children when forcing anyone to co-operate with moves to deport them; give those affected time to seek legal advice; consider the impact on local multicultural communities when banning nationalities from Australia; and broaden exemptions to allow extended family members of dual nationals to visit Australia.
Giles is refusing to disclose which nationalities the government will target, claiming public interest immunity. Comment has been sought from the offices of Giles and Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil.
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