Infuriated Dutton’s bid to close asylum-seeker appeal loophole

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton says the cases of some asylum-seekers who are allowed to stay are ‘infuriating’.

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton says the cases of some asylum-seekers who are allowed to stay in Australia are “infuriating”, as he pushes for changes to costly and lengthy legal processes.

The Administrative Appeals Tribunal regularly reviews decisions made by Mr Dutton or his delegate to cancel a refugee’s visa, which can then be overturned or referred to higher courts.

Mr Dutton said taxpayers were paying “tens of millions of dollars a year in these legal roundabouts”, amid reports Iranian refugees were able to keep their visas after voluntarily returning to their birth country — including for a holiday and wedding — despite claiming they were in danger of persecution.

Malcolm Turnbull said those refugees, who came to Australia by boat and whom Mr Dutton had wanted to deport, had “clearly not” made a credible claim for asylum and their cases were being examined.

Mr Dutton said he was “frustrated” by some AAT judgments, noting the term of outgoing president Duncan Kerr would not be renewed when it ended this week.

Justice Kerr is a former Labor MP and Keating government minister appointed to the tribunal by Julia Gillard.

“It’s always interesting to go back and look at the appointment of the particular Labor government of the day,” he told 2GB. “It’s a frustration we live with.”

Calling for systemic change, Mr Dutton said in some circumstances he could overrule the AAT but all parties should be bound by a judge’s decision to ­prevent cases going “on and on and on”.

He pointed out the government could cancel temporary protection visas once any “threat” was deemed to have passed. “Some of these cases are infuriating,” Mr Dutton told 3AW.

“There are many cases that I look at where, on the facts available to me, you shake your head because the other aspect of this is that these people, if they’re not legitimate refugees, are displacing people who have a claim to be made out. People who are being slaughtered in the Middle East now that we would want to give protection to, they’re the ones being displaced by people seeking a better economic outcome.”

His criticism of legal processes comes as the Papua New Guinean and Australian governments prepare to close the Manus Island detention centre by October 31, with the decommissioning of parts of the facility to begin within weeks.

However, he could not say how many of the 2000 people on Manus or Nauru would be eligible to resettle in the US under a deal clinched with the Obama administration and reluctantly accepted by Donald Trump.

Asylum-seekers on Manus Island not accepted by the US but found to be refugees will be able to live in Papua New Guinea, while about 400 non-refugees will have to return to their country of origin.

Of the 850 men on Manus Island, about 400 have been found to be refugees.

The AAT did not respond to a request for comment.