Dutton cracks down on ‘fake refugees’

Peter Dutton has set an October deadline for 7500 boat arrivals who are yet to apply for refugee status.

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton. Picture: Kym Smith

The Turnbull government has announced a crackdown on “fake refugees”, setting a deadline of October 1 for boat arrivals who are yet to apply for refugee status to present their case for protection.

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said today there were 7500 illegal maritime arrivals living in Australia who were yet to prove they were refugees and owed protection by Australia.

Most arrived during the Rudd-Gillard Labor government, and more than 80 per cent came without identity documents.

Last year they cost the Australian taxpayer approximately $250m in income support alone, according to Mr Dutton.

He said that if people refused to provide information about their identity, they could expect to be cut off from government income support, deported, and banned from re-entering Australia.

“We aren’t going to use taxpayers’ money. People work hard for their money, they pay taxes each year, and they don’t want that money going to welfare payments to people who are not true refugees, and this government’s going to clamp down,” Mr Dutton said.

“We aren’t going to allow these people to continue to access welfare services and we’re going to make that very clear to people.”

Mr Dutton said the government would use a range of agencies including Australian Border Force and the Australian Federal Police to implement the crackdown.

“If people think that they can rip the Australian taxpayer off, if people think that they can con the Australian taxpayer, then I’m sorry, the game’s up, and we are not going to allow people to take Australian taxpayers for a ride,” he said.

“We are prepared to support people who are legitimate refugees, but we aren’t going to support people who are just accessing welfare, accessing taxpayer benefits, and then refusing to provide any information in relation to their protection claim.”

Mr Dutton said the cost of processing 50,000 arrivals who arrived on 800 boats after the Rudd government weakened border protection policy had topped more than $13.7 billion.

Liberal frontbencher Christopher Pyne said 17 new detention centres had opened under Labor and at least 1,200 lives had been lost at sea.

“In the years that we’ve been in government since 2013 we’ve managed to close almost all of those detention centres,” he told Sky News today.

“We have had no arrivals because of the policies of this government, first under Scott Morrison, now under Peter Dutton, but we do have a legacy caseload of people left over from the Labor government that we’re still working through, and 7500 of those are asylum seekers so called, who haven’t even lodged a claim and simply are living here and refusing to cooperate with the government.

“Now they’re getting welfare, Medicare support, getting schooled in our schools if they have children, and what Peter Dutton has announced today, I think very fairly, is that we’ll give them until October 1st to cooperate, and if they don’t cooperate we will cut them off from government handouts, we’ll still look after them from a health point of view and from an education point of view if they have children at schools, but we won’t continue to support them on the government welfare unless they cooperate with the government to resolve their particular cases.”

Crossbench senator Nick Xenophon said he believed the government would follow through with the threat to deport people.

“I think that the government realises that this is something that has public support, or that it appeals to their core constituency, and I think it’s something that will be prosecuted by them,” he told the ABC’s Insiders program.

“It’s important that we are calm and methodical and fair about this, but it also raises the question as to whether this would have to go through the parliament.

“I think it could probably be done by administrative means to bypass the parliament, so I guess we’ll just have to wait and see, but I only hope that the government puts as much effort into dealing with job seekers, as it does with asylum seekers, and that’s what my main concern is and that’s what people on the ground in South Australia are telling me - their fear of losing their jobs or holding on to their jobs.”