Labor and Coalition negotiating on migration ‘super bill’

Immigration Minister Tony Burke is negotiating a deal with the Coalition that could see a trio of migration bills pass the parliament as soon as this week.

Home Affairs and Immigration Minister Tony Burke. Picture: Martin Ollman/NewsWire

Home Affairs and Immigration Minister Tony Burke is negotiating a deal with the Coalition that could see a trio of migration bills granting the government extraordinary powers to deport and monitor non-citizens pass the parliament as soon as this week.

Labor has taken steps to pass the separate pieces of legislation as one “super bill” during the final sitting week of the year, including a bill that will empower the government to deport unlawful non-citizens to a third country and reimpose monitoring conditions on freed detainees.

On Monday night, Labor moved a motion in the Senate attaching the bill with previously shelved legislation forcing foreigners who resisted their deportation to co-operate in their removal or else face a mandatory jail sentence of one year.

The two pieces of migration legislation are slated for debate in the Senate on Wednesday, along with another bill that remains before the House of Representatives to ban the use of phones and illegal drugs in immigration detention centres.

The Australian understands the Coalition wants some amendments to the legislation, but the deal to secure its passage through the Senate could be completed by the end of the sitting week.

The Greens have criticised the three migration bills for being among the worst attacks on the rights of asylum-seekers in the nation’s history, and accused the government of attempting to pass the measures as one “super bill”.

Greens immigration spokesman David Shoebridge said the move was an attempt by Labor to prevent the Coalition from “weaponising migration during the election”, criticising Mr Burke for teaming up with the opposition. “This collection of bills will be the biggest attack on migration laws since the White Australia policy,” Senator Shoebridge said.

“The Albanese government is packaging these bills as an early Christmas present for the Liberals, with the price being paid by some of the most marginalised people in the country.”

Legislation introduced by Mr Burke earlier this month in response to the YBFZ court ruling that struck down the government’s ankle monitoring and curfew conditions regime for being unconstitutional has been widely criticised by legal experts and human rights advocates.

The bill will introduce a new “community protection test” to allow the government to continue monitoring detainees freed under the NZYQ decision a year ago, and allow Mr Burke to re-­detain unlawful non-citizens and deport them to a third country under a paid “reception arrangement”. It includes “immunity provisions” to protect the govern­ment and officials from legal liability for these decisions.

A Senate committee scrutinising the legislation handed down its report late on Tuesday, recommending that the bill be passed.

“The committee continues to maintain it is appropriate for the Australian government to have the power to remove non-citizens who have no lawful right to remain within the country,”it said.

Coalition senators James Paterson and Paul Scarr criticised Labor for its “successive policy failures” in the report but said the opposition would “work constructively” with the government.

The Greens said in a dissenting report that it was a “fundamental threat to Australia’s international obligations and multiculturalism in this country”.