Topics: Migration Amendment (Strengthening the Character) Test Bill, Novak Djokovic, foreign interference.
MIKE O’LOUGHLIN: Now, the Morrison Government will tomorrow reintroduce an updated version of its Migration Amendment strengthening what they call the Strengthening the Character Test Bill 2021. Now, the new legislation aims to address gaps in the current laws, strengthen the Government’s powers to quickly deport or refuse or cancel visas of noncitizens who commit violent or sexual offences. Joining me now to actually explain this a little more for us is Federal Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews. Minister Andrews, good morning. Thanks for your time.
KAREN ANDREWS: Good morning, how are you? So, what we are planning to do this week – in fact, tomorrow – is to take legislation through the Parliament that deals with the character test for people who are either seeking a visa to come into the country or who are already here. These amendments will mean that we can cancel the visa of some of the very serious criminals who are out there at the moment. So, what we are seeking to do is if someone is convicted – a foreign national is convicted of a crime that is punishable at law by two years in prison but they are sentenced to less than 12 months, we can still deport them on character grounds. At the moment, that’s not possible under that particular section of the Act.
And let’s be clear: We’re talking about really serious criminals here. This are people who have been convicted of offences that include child abuse, date rape, breaching Apprehended Violence Orders, possessing illegal weapons. We want to make sure that, firstly, these people can’t come into the country and, if they commit crimes when they’re here, we can act to deport them.
MIKE O’LOUGHLIN: As I read that media release it does, quote, “The bill introduces amendments”, as you’ve just said, “to allow for discretionary visa refusal or cancellation where a noncitizen has a conviction of a designated offence punishable by at least two years imprisonment.” So, they’ll need to have served the two years or just been convicted of a crime, but does the crime need to have been committed here in Australia or not?
KAREN ANDREWS: Well, there’s two parts to it. One is to stop people who have been convicted of those types of crimes from being able to get a visa and come into the country, and the other is to deal with people who commit those crimes here in Australia and they’re visa holders, so this is the foreign nationals.
MIKE O’LOUGHLIN: So, even if the offender ends up with a light sentence like community service, if the maximum possible sentence for their crime is two years, they could be included in this; is that right?
KAREN ANDREWS: Yes, absolutely. And that is the point of it. Our legal system provides for a range of outcomes and the courts determine that, but, as a Government, we are saying that if you are convicted of one of these serious crimes and you’re a foreign national, then we should have the right to protect Australian citizens and people who live here by deporting those criminals.
MIKE O’LOUGHLIN: So, that’s why it is so important for the Government to change it now. I suppose it would probably be a lovely sidebar to the election arguments at the moment, I suppose. So, that’s where are you hoping to get Labor’s support in this?
KAREN ANDREWS: Yes, we are, but let’s be clear. We have been seeking to pass this legislation for quite some time, and it has been voted against by Labor and the Greens. So, we are reintroducing legislation and I am seriously hoping that this time Labor and the Greens have a long hard look at themselves and decide that they’re going to support this legislation. They haven’t done it in the past.
MIKE O’LOUGHLIN: And I do think voters are going to have a hard look at all parties this coming federal election. I know as you’re saying, Labor and the Greens voted against earlier versions of this Bill; that was both September 2019, October 2021. They said: Fears it would introduce arbitrary and unreasonably low thresholds to revoke or refuse visas, potentially resulting in noncitizens being forcibly removed from Australia and separated from their families and livelihoods.
KAREN ANDREWS: I think Australians are very clear that when you’re looking at the Labor Party and you’re looking at the history of the Coalition, the Coalition has always been much stronger on national security and law enforcement matters. That has not been a strength at all of the Labor Party. In fact, they have been particularly weak and very often they’ll promise that they’ll things and they’ll promise that they’ll support legislation, but the reality is that they don’t.
And you’re right. We’re coming into an election. Hard questions should be asked of both the Coalition Government, but also of the Labor Party. And at the moment the Labor Party is getting absolutely a free ride. So, they’re managing to get away with having a low profile and say nothing, and on national security that puts them at a serious risk to the Australian people, because they’re trying to fly under the radar, which means that they are not committed to national security.
MIKE O’LOUGHLIN: Have there been issues with the legislation, the most current?
KAREN ANDREWS: There have been issues that have been raised by Labor and the Greens and, look, we will seek to address those clearly with the legislation, and one of them in particular was in relation to common assault, and we’ve amended the legislation so that we’re clarifying that visa cancellation, refusal, won’t be engaged by common assault unless it’s domestic violence or causes bodily harm. But, really, I mean, this legislation is important and it goes to making sure that the people who are in Australia and are law‑abiding citizens have the right to be safe and secure, and that means that if you’re a foreign national, you commit these serious crimes here in Australia, even if you get a sentence of less than 12 months for a crime that carries a penalty of two years or more, you will still be deported. It is time to go.
MIKE O’LOUGHLIN: Do you think the opposition parties will be supportive of the Bill in its updated form? I know the Prime Minister has urged Mr Albanese to support him in kicking the criminals out of Australia, I quote, and to get off the fence and back the legislation. What do you think?
KAREN ANDREWS: Well, I think it’s coming to crunch time for Labor and for the Greens. If they’re not going to support this legislation, they really should have to give some pretty serious comments and reasons as to why they won’t support the legislation. And really those questions should have been asked of them previously. This legislation is not new. It has been there for some time, and they have consistently voted against keeping Australians safe.
MIKE O’LOUGHLIN: Crossbenchers aren’t the only ones, Minister, who have concerns over this. Many experts in the human rights space have spoken up about the Bill, one of which is David Burke, legal director of the Human Rights Law Centre. He said, and I quote, “With this bill the Morrison Government is vying for even more power to lock people up and deport them unnecessarily. Thousands of people’s lives could be ruined, and families torn apart over minor incidents.”
Another is Carolyn Graydon from the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, who said, quote, “The Government has repeatedly failed to establish any legitimate purpose for this further expansion of already excessive powers to cancel or refuses visas on character grounds. This racist witch‑hunt must end. This Bill reflects an unwarranted mistrust in our justice system and will result in five times more people unjustifiably facing cancellation of permanent and temporary visas, including refugees who will face catastrophic consequences, including indefinite detention and permit separation of families.”
What’s your response?
KAREN ANDREWS: I’m not at all sympathetic to foreign nationals who are date rapists or child abusers. So, as far as I’m concerned, this legislation is absolutely needed to make sure that those people cannot stay here in Australia. I mean, we’re not talking about misdemeanours. We’re actually talking about serious criminals and offenders –
MIKE O’LOUGHLIN: They’re not all date rapists.
KAREN ANDREWS: No, it also includes people who have been convicted of stalking, of domestic violence, of assaulting police officers. So, that’s who these people are. That’s the offences. And I make no apology for wanting people out of the country and, quite frankly, most Australians would not want them here either.
MIKE O’LOUGHLIN: I gather the Bill is backed by the Police Federation of Australia and victims of crime. They’ll allow the Government to deport serious offenders even if they received a less than one year of imprisonment. But does the Government not trust our justice system?
KAREN ANDREWS: Well, we have to make sure that we have the right legislation in place because that’s what the police enforce, that’s what our courts actually deal with. So, I think that it’s absolutely right that we are putting this legislation in place to make it very clear what the intent of this Government is.
MIKE O’LOUGHLIN: Now, the amendments also facilitate the use of data matching and biometric information to actually help the Government identify people whoever of character concern. Can you talk us through this?
KAREN ANDREWS: Yep. So, our law enforcement agencies and our national security agencies have a range of tools, mechanisms that they use to properly identify people and to determine who is a risk or poses a risk to our nation. So, biometrics effectively – and I’ll give Australian actual example of that, we used biometrics when we were looking at people coming out of Afghanistan. When we did that significant uplift along with many other nations, biometrics was used so that we could properly identify people so that we knew who we were bringing out of the country and potentially bringing into Australia. So, biometrics is actually a very important tool for our law enforcement and our national security agencies. We need to be able to know who these people are and sometimes, you know, criminals have multiple passports, multiple identities, so we do use biometrics to check who they are and who’s coming here.
MIKE O’LOUGHLIN: I think the concerns too are people with misdemeanours won’t be protected if this comes in.
KAREN ANDREWS: Well, the targets for us clearly are the serious criminals and I’ve gone through who those offenders are likely to be in terms of the crimes, and I think that we need to look at making sure that we are deporting people who are potentially doing us harm in the longer term, let alone the fact that they have been convicted of a serious crime in Australia.
MIKE O’LOUGHLIN: Where are things at? I’d love to know whether the Department of Home Affairs Digital Passenger Declaration, the DPD, I know that probably would have been – if it had been in on time, it would have been a bit more of an assistance to the Novak Djokovic visa case.
KAREN ANDREWS: Look, potentially, but I would say that we did have in place a multilayered approach to dealing with people who were claiming to have a medical exemption to come into the country. Now, in the case of Novak Djokovic, what happened was that he was uplifted by the airline. But when he arrived in Australia, the Australian Border Force actually did their job, stopped him at the border, scrutinised the documentation he had, and the issue was that Novak Djokovic could not provide the medical advice to say that that he could not be vaccinated for a medical reason. That was the issue at the border. Now, would a Digital Passenger Declaration assist in that process? Yes, it would, but let’s be clear the process actually worked in terms of picking up that there was a problem with the information that Mr Djokovic was providing at the border.
MIKE O’LOUGHLIN: Because I know that if a passenger declared on the planned DPD that he or she had not received a COVID vaccination, then the airline is advised not to uplift the passenger.
KAREN ANDREWS: Yes, and then it would go through the process of determining whether or not the individual had a medical reason for not being vaccinated and had the appropriate proof of that. Now, that was what passengers have been required to provide under the somewhat manual system, even though that includes the Australia Travel Declaration.
MIKE O’LOUGHLIN: There was quite a bit of concern, Minister, too, when Australians realised the situation of the other people being detained at the Park Hotel Djokovic was sent to. More than 30 refugees and asylum seekers have been at that hotel for months, some for more than a year and the refugees who have been detained by Australia for more than a decade. Is there anything happening to help those people who are simply seeking asylum?
KAREN ANDREWS: Look, there is a process that is in place to deal with people who are in this country, whether that be illegally or for other reasons, but let me be clear: The Government’s policy position is longstanding and that is if you seek to enter Australia illegally by boat, you will never be able to settle here. There is zero chance of success. Now, that has been our position for quite some time, and it has worked very effectively, because we do have the absolute contrast of what things were like under Labor prior to that policy being implemented, and that resulted in at least 1,200 people dying at sea, and I have been very clear that I don’t want people dying at sea on my watch. Now, for the people who are here, we are looking at how we can resettle them in third countries.
MIKE O’LOUGHLIN: For a decade. They’ve been here a decade.
KAREN ANDREWS: Yes, and people have access to the court system here in Australia, so many of these people are pursuing legal options to be able to stay here in Australia.
MIKE O’LOUGHLIN: Look, I know I’ve got to wrap up. You’ve got to disappear. I’ve got one more question. What can you tell us about the recent foreign interference threat to the federal election uncovered by ASIO?
KAREN ANDREWS: Well, ASIO does a fantastic job in looking at a whole range of national security issues. So, we did hear from the Director General of Security, Mike Burgess, in his annual threat assessment last week he gave an example of foreign interference. Now, let’s be clear he made it abundantly clear that he wasn’t speaking about any particular election, but he said that foreign interference takes place at local, state and federal levels. And he has been very, very clear about the comments that he made. Quite frankly, I thought it was appalling behaviour by Labor in Senate Estimates yesterday where they started making claims under parliamentary privilege and putting questions to the Director General of Security, trying to identify who the individual was. Now, if that’s not an example of Labor’s lackadaisical approach to national security, I don’t know what is.
MIKE O’LOUGHLIN: Karen Andrews, Federal Minister for Home Affairs. I do appreciate your time. I know you’ve got to shoot off, but thank you for having a chat with us this morning.
KAREN ANDREWS: It’s a pleasure. Take care.
END