Labor, Greens all at sea on asylum claim fast-tracking

Some folks just never learn, no matter the human turmoil or cost to taxpayers. Kristina Keneally is “completely off the reservation”, Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said in a radio interview on Thursday, adding the Labor senator “is dragging even Anthony Albanese to the left on border protection matters”. Labor and the Greens reached a deal to try to scrap fast-track processing of illegal maritime arrivals. As Geoff Chambers reported on Thursday, the new deal could see up to 4000 asylum-seekers who arrived by boat remain in the country for more than 500 days. Greens senator Nick McKim is leading a disallowance motion to limit the people who can be considered for fast-tracking; the Morrison government has delayed debate on the motion and it is now up to the Senate crossbench to decide its fate, most likely next week.

The Immigration Assessment Authority was established as an office within the Administrative Appeals Tribunal’s migration and refugee division; it is independent of the minister and the Department of Home Affairs, and it began operations in October 2015. The authority conducts reviews of fast-track decisions that refuse to grant a protection visa to applicants. The system is for unauthorised maritime arrivals who entered the country between August 2012 and December 2013 and who were not taken to an offshore processing country. The authority must provide a mechanism of limited review that is efficient, quick, free of bias and consistent with the Migration Act.

Labor maintains the fast-track process is neither fast nor fair. As of February last year, the average processing time from lodgement to a primary decision under the current program was 415 days for temporary protection visas and 316 days for safe haven enterprise visas. Yet in his statutory review of the AAT, former High Court judge Ian Callinan said the authority was an “effective and fair decision-maker in the cases with which it deals”. Immigration Minister David Coleman argues fast-tracking is a key border security policy. According to the government, the Labor-Greens disallowance motion would result in application assessments blowing out from 23 days on average, as of June this year, to 504 days. It also would place further stress on the AAT, which is heaving under an immense caseload due to a flood of appeals in the wake of a record number of visa refusals, creating a backlog of almost 62,500 people waiting for determinations.

As Rosie Lewis reported last month, there was a 257 per cent increase between July 2016 and August this year, driven by greater numbers of permanent and temporary visa refusals. The authority’s fast-track system is 95 per cent faster than the standard AAT process. A separate Labor-Greens move would block the privatisation of visa applications. Home Affairs has warned that preventing almost 1000 visa-processing staff, employed by the government, from processing visas would trigger a blowout in decision times, cripple Australia’s visa system and devastate key export industries and the inflow of skilled workers.

The government also has raised concerns the medivac bill in its current form could lead to weakened borders due to the “limited nature of the security and character grounds” on which Mr Dutton can refuse a transfer. In parliament on Wednesday, the Home Affairs Minister detailed his decision to stop the “violent father” of an Iranian asylum-seeker from accompanying her to Australia to receive medical treatment. The father’s ban is the first time Mr Dutton has exercised his medivac discretion to refuse a transfer. Labor argues the medivac laws were working and did not need to be repealed by the government.

But the laws are flawed. As Mr Dutton told 2GB on Thursday, Labor had pulled off a con job and had completely lost the plot on border policy. “We know that there are people here now who’ve come for medical attention, are refusing medical attention, there’s no one in hospital,” he said, suggesting this would aid the people-smugglers’ model. When Labor weakened border controls in 2008 it led to 50,000 people arriving on 800 boats; 8000 children were placed in detention and 1200 people died at sea. The government estimates the cost to taxpayers has topped $17bn.

Mr Morrison went to the May election pledging to ditch the medivac laws; in July, the Coalition’s repeal bill passed the house and was sent to a Senate committee. On Friday the Senate’s report will be handed down, but the upper house won’t vote on the repeal legislation until it sits again in November. Tasmanian Jacqui Lambie is likely to cast the deciding vote. For the sake of stronger borders and to avoid more deaths at sea, crossbench senators should back the Coalition’s medivac repeal. For its part, after a crushing defeat in May, Labor should return to the sensible centre, far away from the soapbox antics of Senator Keneally and the siren song of the clueless, ever-posturing Greens. Soft on borders, weak on national security may suit the ambitious Senator Keneally’s “woke” personal brand, but it is not a winning formula for Mr Albanese.