Immigration failure fires housing crisis, says Dan Tehan

The Coalition has accused the government of presiding over an immigration failure, with more than 16,000 asylum-seekers arriving by plane applying for protection visas in the past year.

The opposition’s immigration spokesman, Dan Tehan. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

The Coalition has accused the government of presiding over an immigration failure that could add to housing and rental pressure with more than 16,000 asylum-seekers arriving by plane applying for protection visas in the past year and more than 73,000 legacy cases awaiting deportation.

According to the latest Protection Visa application data tabled in the Senate on Friday, 1475 ­asylum-seekers applied for protection visas in April after arriving by plane with only 20 refused a visa and returned to their country of origin.

The government argues the numbers are lower than before the borders closed under the former government in response to the pandemic. However, the ­Coalition claims that Labor had scaled back the number of deportations, with a rise in the number of asylum-seekers now residing in the community.

The Albanese government faces pressure to release a report into the administration of the immigration system, which is believed to be highly critical of the management of the visa system.

The opposition’s immigration spokesman, Dan Tehan, accused the government of a failure to deal with a growing number of ­arrivals by plane, with a drop in deportations, while cutting back funding in last week’s budget for the immigration management of “unlawful” non-citizens.

Some 16,120 asylum-seekers have now arrived under the Albanese government.

Mr Tehan said there were 191 people who arrived unlawfully by air or boat and who were being held in immigration detention facilities in March 2023. This meant the rest were living in the community, which was putting further pressure on the existing housing crisis with an average of around 2000 arriving a month.

The total number of people ­denied a final protection visa but yet to be deported includes cases dating to 1994.

The legacy caseload includes those who arrived under the former Coalition government and Labor governments before that.

Lodgements of protection visas over the past decade peaked in 2018 at more than 27,000 that year before falling during the pandemic. They have since began to rise again.

The backlog has been attributed to delays in the courts and the “broken” Administrative Appeals Tribunal, which Labor has pledged to abolish, and has meant that thousands of asylum-seekers have been stuck in the system for years.

“More than 100,000 asylum-seekers, including more than 73,000 who have had their claim rejected, are living in the community adding further to the housing crisis under Labor and their cuts in the budget show they are not serious about addressing this issue,” Mr Tehan said.

“When Labor were in opposition they called the number of asylum-seekers arriving by plane a ‘crisis’. Labor said these people were victims of human trafficking who were forced into modern slavery but now they are in government, Labor doesn’t want to talk about the problem.”

Last week’s budget revealed that funding for management of unlawful non-citizens would drop from $1.8bn in 2023-24 to $1.4bn in 2026-27. The budget papers said that the decrease in expenditure related to forecast reductions in the detainee population.

Immigration Minister Andrew Giles accused Peter Dutton of presiding over a broken system when in government. “Backlog after backlog, slow processing, delays for business – all ultimately hurting Australia’s reputation … Issues that we are now fixing,” he said.

“In the first year Peter Dutton was home affairs minister, a record 27,000 people applied for asylum. Under the former Liberal government, a record 140,000 people arrived in Australia and claimed asylum onshore.

“The Albanese government is focused on turning the page on a decade of immigration mismanagement in a sensible and methodical way,” Mr Giles said.