The three anti-refugee laws rushed through Parliament in the dying days of the last parliamentary sitting are even worse than those of the Howard and Dutton era. They will hang like the proverbial albatross around Labor’s neck.
The government insists that the laws are only meant to apply to those with criminal convictions. That would be bad enough; providing for extra-judicial punishment of non-citizens.
But the laws give the government sweeping powers over anyone with a bridging visa on removal or departure grounds. That includes not only those released from indefinite detention by the High Court NZYQ case but also around 4800 asylum seekers rejected by fast track and the 1000 refugees brought from Manus and Nauru who are being denied permanent visas.
The laws will allow the Australian government to pay third countries to accept refugees and non-citizens that it cannot otherwise deport. Disgracefully, while the government says they are too dangerous to live in the Australian community it has no concern at all about sending them to a third country.
The laws will allow the government to jail people who will not co-operate with their own deportation to countries where they fear persecution. And the government has given new draconian powers to Border Force to search for “prohibited items” and confiscate mobile phones in detention—something Labor refused to support in 2020 when the Coalition tried to introduce it.
George Newhouse, principal solicitor for the National Justice Project, made the telling point that the Biloela family, granted permanent visas in 2022 by Albanese, would have been deported in 2019 without a mobile phone to alert supporters and lawyers.
Labor’s hypocrisy knows no bounds. Labor supported Medevac legislation in 2019 that got refugees off Nauru. But Labor’s new laws would prevent such legal action to stop refugees being mistreated in a third country.
Kurdish refugee Mostafa “Moz” Azimitabar, detained on Manus and then in an Australian hotel, said, “For eight years I was tortured by the Australian government…To not know if you will ever be safe is another kind of torture.”
Playing the refugee card
Labor’s crass electoral calculations were revealed when Albanese was asked on Insiders why he was passing laws they previously opposed. Albanese smugly replied, “Before the last election, there was some questioning of our resolve.” He went on, “We have kept Operation Sovereign Borders. No-one who has arrived here by boat has been allowed to settle here.”
Not for the first time, Labor has purposely sacrificed principles on the altar of electoral opportunism. Since Labor was elected asylum boats have been intercepted and turned around at sea. More than 100 asylum seekers have been sent to Nauru, with no prospects of resettlement.
Under the new laws, refugees or non-citizens who are sent to Nauru could be indefinitely detained there. There are literally no conditions placed on the treatment of those sent to a third country.
Labor could have taken a stand when it was elected in 2022. Labor could have ended indefinite detention instead of opposing the High Court decision. Instead of bringing all the refugees from PNG it has left 42 refugees and their families there since 2013, without income or medical support for the last year. Labor has even refused to transfer the ten refugees who are so mentally unwell they are unable to respond to medical assessment.
Burke attacked The Greens for “their love affair with the Liberals” for blocking Labor’s housing bills, but Labor itself has no qualms about collaborating with the Liberals. After Labor’s bills were passed, Liberal shadow minister for Immigration Dan Tehan boasted that the Coalition is now “basically running the immigration system”.
Just when you thought Labor could not sink any lower, it has. By passing these laws, Labor has handed extreme anti-refugee powers to any future Liberal government. Like the attack on the CFMEU, many people will choose not to vote Labor at the next election.
But there is no parliamentary solution. The campaign to get refugees off Nauru was built on protests and demonstrations. It was protests and demonstrations, inside and outside the hotels, that finally ended detention for those brought to Australia from Manus and Nauru.
When asked if he would use the laws, Albanese coyly replied, “We will do what we need to do.” And the refugee movement will need to do all we can to stop him.
By Ian Rintoul
