Thursday, 26th June 2014
By Stefanie Balogh
Immigration Minister Scott Morrison in question time
ASYLUM-SEEKERS will have to prove their identity and will be denied visas if they deliberately throw away their documents as the government moves to prevent people gaming Australia’s immigration system.
As Immigration Minister Scott Morrison yesterday echoed John Howard’s 2001 declaration that Coalition MPs could “say that once again we are deciding who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come’’, the Greens accused him of “incredibly ideological and grubby dog-whistling’’.
Mr Morrison has introduced amendments to the Migration Act that would shift the onus on to asylum-seekers by making it their “ultimate responsibility’’ to establish their claims for protection and provide evidence to back up their application.
If an applicant could not or was unwilling to establish their identity, they would be rejected, along with those who supplied bogus documents.
“Australians need to be confident that those who are found to be refugees are in fact who they say they are and that if asylum seekers do not co-operate with the government to establish their identity they should not be given the benefit of the doubt,” Mr Morrison said.
“The previous Labor government ran a tick and flick assessment process which gave the benefit of the doubt to asylum seekers who often arrived in Australia without identity documentation, despite in many cases travelling into our region by air before boarding boats.’’
It is understood more than 80 per cent were turning up without documents.
The changes also require applicants to be upfront with their claims. “These changes uphold the importance of integrity, the establishment of identity and increased efficiency in our protection processing system,’’ he said.
The amendments do, however, recognise that some applicants, such as stateless people and unaccompanied children, do not have official documents.
The government is also seeking to alter the risk threshold for assessing complementary protection claims — not those in relation to claims under the Refugees Convention. These can include bikies who claim they are at risk if they return to countries such as New Zealand.
The Federal Court’s definition of a “real chance’’ of significant harm, which can be as low as 10 per cent, will be changed to a test of “more likely than not’’ which would involve a greater than 50 per cent chance that harm would occur if they were returned home.
“This Bill seeks to set the bar at the level Labor was using in government enabling the Department of Immigration and Border Protection to apply that test consistent with the government’s intention. The ‘real chance’ test for Refugee Convention assessments is not affected by this change,’’ Mr Morrison said.
Opposition immigration spokesman Richard Marles said: “We would be extremely concerned if the government attempts to use complex legislation to sneak through shifting the goalposts on what determines refugee status.”
Greens spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young said the proposals were “an ideological attack on vulnerable people who have already been living in limbo for a number of years”.
