Deportation laws face rushed two-hour inquiry as migration debate rages

2 weeks ago 3

The federal opposition will force Labor’s controversial Nauru deportation laws through a rushed two-hour inquiry, but the Albanese government quashed attempts to investigate its wider migration policies as debate from the weekend’s anti-immigration rallies spilled into parliament.

As both One Nation and the Coalition this week beckoned further debate about immigration levels, Labor announced the permanent migration intake would be unchanged from last year, at 185,000 places.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese during question time on Tuesday.

The opposition said the visa allocation did not account for the “real pressures facing modern Australia” as it pushed for a Senate inquiry into government immigration policies.

Labor rebuffed the move and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese assured his caucus on Tuesday that net overseas migration levels were moderating, as he sought to temper public discussion by warning MPs not to demonise people who attended the weekend marches with legitimate concerns about migration.

But as the federal government defended Australia’s migration program, Labor came under additional fire from migrant groups and refugee advocates over its plans to strip non-citizens of basic legal rights when they are ordered to Nauru under a secretive $408 million pact.

Eight multicultural groups combined on Tuesday to raise their fears that the new laws – designed to apply to the NZYQ cohort of former immigration detainees with serious criminal records, including murder and sex offences – could target other migrants.

A statement on behalf of South Asian, Arab, Hazara, Iranian, African, South Sudanese, Pakistani and Tamil organisations said the bill showed migrants to Australia were treated under a different set of rules.

“It is hypocritical that Labor MPs and senators are condemning anti-immigration protests while at the same time launching some of the most anti-immigration laws and deportations this country has ever seen,” said Jana Favero, deputy chief executive of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, which co-ordinated the message.

The deportation laws will be rushed through a two-hour Senate inquiry on Wednesday night – other inquiries typically take several weeks – and will pass parliament with the Coalition’s support. The inquiry will hear from Home Affairs officials, but it will not seek external submissions or produce a report.

Opposition home affairs spokesperson Andrew Hastie said the Coalition would facilitate the urgent passage of the bill to make sure former detainees with criminal convictions were deported as soon as possible, but he continued a political attack against the government’s management of the NZYQ High Court case.

A High Court ruling that people could not be held in indefinite detention after serving sentences forced the government to find new ways to deal with offenders who could not be deported back to their own countries and whom other nations would not accept.

Opposition home affairs spokesman Andrew Hastie in parliament on Monday.

“It is the Labor government’s successive policy failures that have brought us to this position in the first place,” Hastie said. “It’s not the High Court, it’s not the Coalition or the Greens. This mess sits at Labor’s feet alone.”

Independent MP Zali Steggall sought unsuccessfully to move an amendment addressing “immense overreach” in the bill, which she said could affect other people on certain bridging visas.

“This legislation is deeply problematic ... I acknowledge the need to find a solution, but the need to protect procedural fairness and natural justice are cornerstones of our justice system and should be absolutely upheld,” Steggall said.

Meanwhile, One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts tried to launch a separate inquiry into the effect of “high immigration levels on the Australian economy” in the Senate on Monday night. The Coalition amended it to probe “the failed immigration policies of the Albanese Labor government”.

Labor shut down the Coalition’s amendment on Tuesday night, after opposition immigration spokesman Paul Scarr said the issues should be discussed in a way that is “considered, measured and reasoned”.

“I do not support blaming immigrants or migrants for the issues we’re facing today. I think it’s wrong, I think it’s divisive, and I think it tears at our social fabric,” he said.

“I do support having a reasoned, considered debate in relation to the issue. I think we need to have that debate ... If the debate is not had, extreme elements will fill or seek to fill the vacuum, and that’s something we must guard against.”

Labor senators pushed back. “Sure, we should be able to have a rational debate about migration. Sure, we should be able to do that,” Labor senator Michelle Ananda-Rajah said.

“But rationality goes out the window when that argument is co-opted by neo-Nazis, when anti-immigrant sentiment is the business model of One Nation and now the Coalition. This place turns the dog whistle into a megaphone.”

Amid the fight over immigration numbers, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke released overdue targets for the government’s permanent migration program, which issues skilled and family visas.

“It follows consultation with the states and territories, which recommended maintaining the size and composition of the program, with a focus on skilled migration,” he said.

The Australian Industry Group welcomed the maintained target as recognition of skill shortages facing Australia, but the Coalition said the government gave an insufficient explanation for its decision.

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