Coalition sets character test for Labor over deporting criminals

The Coalition will try to wedge Labor on national security by ­introducing legislation to bolster Australia’s character test, calling on the government to adopt broader powers to cancel or refuse the visas of foreign-born criminals.

Opposition immigration spokesman Dan Tehan. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Nicole Cleary

The Coalition will try to wedge Labor on national security by ­introducing legislation to bolster Australia’s character test, calling on the Albanese government to adopt broader powers to cancel or refuse the visas of foreign-born criminals.

Setting up a political fight in the 47th parliament, opposition immigration spokesman Dan Tehan told The Australian he would introduce a private member’s bill when MPs returned from the summer break to lower the threshold under which Immigration Minister Andrew Giles can deport non-citizens convicted of serious crimes such as child abuse, domestic violence, date rape, stalking and police assault.

Under the changes, Mr Giles would have the option to kick out offenders if their crime was punishable by a maximum sentence of at least two years’ jail, regardless of the sentence they ­received.

That would give the government broader powers, as the mandatory cancellation threshold under the existing character test is one-year imprisonment.

“The legislation will empower the immigration minister to consider the sentence that a crime ­attracts rather than the sentence that the criminal receives. This is a more objective approach,” Mr Tehan writes in The Australian on Monday.

“It will also deter judges from providing shorter sentences so that convicted criminals avoid falling foul of the character test provisions. The Australian people expect that a guest in this country who commits crimes of violence or a sexual nature should forfeit their right to remain in Australia – or at the very least their actions will cause the authorities to look at their visa status.”

The Coalition’s amendments to section 501 of the Migration Act would capture foreigners convicted of offences involving violence against a person, weapons, breaching an apprehended violence order or non-consensual sexual acts.

The private member’s bill will mirror legislation the Morrison government failed to push through the Senate before the May election, despite Labor supporting the changes in the House of Representatives.

It would be retrospective, so a person whose visa application had not been finalised before the legislation hypothetically passed parliament could be deported based on the updated laws.

New Zealand repeatedly criticised the Coalition’s use of the character test, prompting ­Anthony Albanese to pledge in July to take a “common sense” ­approach to deportations.

Labor has previously expressed concern about the retrospective nature of the Coalition’s changes and warned it could see low-level offending trigger visa cancellations.

Immigration Minister Andrew Giles. Picture: Arsineh Houspian

Mr Giles, who as an opposition assistant immigration spokesman in 2019 described the reforms as “unnecessary and divisive”, was approached for comment.

A government spokeswoman said the Liberals had five years to pass the bill after first introducing it in 2018 “but didn’t bother following through with it”.

“It seems Dan Tehan has spent his Christmas holidays looking at the record of the old government for ideas,” the spokeswoman said.

Mr Tehan said Labor could demonstrate it had learnt from its handling of asylum-seeker boat arrivals under the Rudd and Gillard governments, which he ­labelled a national security “failure”, and use its numbers in both houses to pass the bill quickly.

“The bill has not changed. If it was a good policy that Labor supported in the last parliament, it’s a good policy that Labor should support now,” he said. This legislation is not being introduced for our use, it’s being introduced because it’s in the interests of our community.

The character test has existed since the early 1990s. The Abbott government broadened the powers to refuse or cancel visas on character grounds in 2014. More than 10,000 criminals had visas cancelled or refused since then.