Senate Inquiry into the Migration Act

Senate Inquiry in the Administration and operation of the Migration Act 1958

AJA's views on the report:

The 2006 Senate Inquiry into the Migration Act is another valuable report on immigration in Australia. The inquiry primarily focused on refugee and asylum seeker issues ? not because this is the majority of work performed by the Department of Immigration, but because this is the most contentious area of immigration policy . The department put forward evidence showing the vast number of visa and citizenship applications they process annually, arguing that refugee and asylum seeker issues are only a very small part of their workload and should not be the primary focus of an inquiry. This is true, but as an argument to deflect attention from this area of policy it holds no weight. Surely if there is this much attention on such a small portion of their work, it shows that they are consistently getting it wrong, and that conscientious Australians will continue to work until the policies are fixed.

In any case, the claim that all other areas of immigration are working smoothly is wrong. When I was working in the electorate office of a federal politician, the majority issue that people called up to complain about or receive help with, was applications to the Department of Immigration. One important issue was that if an Australian citizen?married someone from overseas, the partner had to leave the country to have the visa application finalised. This can take 6-18 months. For some who had arrived on a business visa, got married and then years later the business visa expired, this meant separating children from their parent. Applications to the Minister to have this offshore processing waived invariably went unheeded no matter how heart-wrenching the circumstances of the family. For these Australians, the wheels of bureaucracy ground slowly and without heed for individual circumstances.

Executive Summary of recommendations

The Inquiry made some excellent suggestions for how the asylum seeking process could be made more fair and reasonable. There are many methods and practices used by DIMA during the refugee determination process to ensure that as few people as possible are successful in their claims. This is a very important distinction ? the current process is not designed to find out who is a genuine refugee. It is designed to find as few refugees as possible.

The major recommendations are these:

?????????? The Migration Act needs an overhaul by an independent body to establish ?an immigration regime that is fair, transparent and legally defensible as well as more concise and comprehensible.?

?????????? The asylum seeking process (refugee status determination or RSD) should be open and transparent to asylum seekers. They should be made aware of what they need to do, given the opportunity to be interviewed, granted independent legal advice, allowed to refute any adverse information if they feel it to be incorrect, and allowed to have their cases reviewed in court.

?????????? Visa decision makers should have increased training in refugee issues and the law ? particularly in procedural fairness.

?????????? Oversight of refugee status determination should be independent, transparent and accountable, up to and including Ministerial actions.

?????????? Detention centres should be independently monitored, with adequate complaints investigation.

?????????? Introduction of Complementary Protection Visa for those who are in need of protection for reasons other than identified in the Refugees Convention.

?????????? A pre removal risk assessment should be conducted, assessing a persons risk on return, as well as ability to reintegrate depending upon individual circumstances such as mental health and country security.

?????????? Detention should be limited to health and security screening, with judicial review if longer than 90 days.

?????????? Bridging Visa E holders should be granted work rights, and no asylum seeking child should be left destitute.

Attached below please find

1. Senate Inquiry recommendations - Or you can go to the Inquiry pages to download the full report via this link.
2. AJA response to the Inquiry report
3. AJAs original submission to the inquiry
4. AJAs statement made at the inquiry hearing
5. DIMIA's reponse to issues raised by AJA at the hearing (seems like we hit a nerve)

Migration Act Inquiry recommendations.pdf 145.34 KB [Download Adobe Reader to view PDF files]

Migration Act Inquiry AJA response 2.pdf 217.65 KB [Download Adobe Reader to view PDF files]

AJA Migration Inquiry sub.pdf 243.55 KB [Download Adobe Reader to view PDF files]

Mig Act Inquiry Senate hearing transcript.doc 93.50 KB

Mig Act Inquiry DIMIA response to AJA issues.doc 95.50 KB