Up to 80,000 people of various visa categories could be potentially removed to third countries by the Albanese government’s migration bill that legal experts, advocates and former refugees have lambasted.
The Albanese government has not detailed which countries it has been in discussions with in a bill that passed the House of Representatives and was examined in a Senate inquiry on Thursday.
The proposed amendments to the Migration Act seeks to deport non-citizens, including not just those convicted of crimes, and to pay those third countries for their part in the removals regime.
It would also grant extensive immunity to government officials and those in third countries involved with the removals as well as reversing protection findings for refugees.
The amendments come after a landmark ruling found indefinite immigration detention was unlawful, triggering the release of some 200 non-citizens with varying criminal offences.
Released immigration detainees, known as the NZYQ cohort, were strapped with ankle monitors and slapped with curfews.
The High Court struck down earlier in November in a case brought by a stateless Eritrean refugee known as YBFZ, ruling it punitive and an overreach by the government which prompted the government to rush this bill.
Under questioning from Liberal senator James Paterson, Department of Home Affairs officials revealed that 10 people had had their ankle monitors and curfews reimposed.
This was followed by Greens senator David Shoebridge pushing first assistant secretary of immigration compliance Michael Thomas also to ascertain which categories of visa holders who were not citizens would be affected.
Mr Thomas said that 4452 people on Bridging Visa E, 986 in immigration detention, 193 in community detention, 246 on Bridging Visa R from the NZYQ cohort, a further 96 individuals also on the same visa and potentially ‘a fluid cohort’ of up to 75,400 people could be included.
Home Affairs secretary Stephanie Foster was grilled about who would be affected by the legislation.
‘Did you inform either or both of the (immigration) ministers (Tony Burke and assistant minister Matt Thistlewaite) that this legislation covers more than 80,000 people, well outside of the NZYQ cohort?’ the senator asked.
‘We certainly explained what the definition of a removal pathway non-citizen was … it’s my understanding that ministers have an understanding of the broader cohort,’ Home Affairs secretary Stephanie Foster answered.
Earlier in the hearing, former Manus Island detainee and award-winning Kurdish-Iranian writer Behrouz Boochani spoke to the draconian nature of the bill if passed.
He said his experience in Papua New Guinea indicates the type of countries that Australia would be negotiating to deport non-citizens to.
‘Based on this bill, you are going to send them to another country to start again and we know those countries that you are going to send people actually, they can detain them, they can deport them and they can torture them,’ he said.
‘What Australia has done is to banish refugees to be out of sight and out of mind.’
He pleaded with the senators to vote down the bill.
‘I know that most of the senators in Australia, probably many of them have never even met a refugee … in their lives. You haven’t met them but they are people. Try to imagine who they are. They are just human beings.’
