Culture

The Government Wants To Ban Asylum Seekers Who Arrive By Boat From Ever Entering Australia

The proposed law would apply to people found to be genuine refugees.

by Tom Clift  30 October 2016
Peter Dutton

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Asylum seekers who attempt to reach Australia by boat will be issued lifetime bans that prevent them from ever setting foot in the country, under proposed legislation set to be introduced by the government when parliament returns. The tough new legislation seeks to enshrine in law the longstanding policy of both major parties: that nobody who arrives by boat without a visa will ever be settled in Australia, even if they are found to be genuine refugees.

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The proposed law would be backdated to 2013, when Kevin Rudd reopened the detention centres on Nauru and Manus Island. The ban on visas would apply to all current and future adults detainees, as well as to former detainees who have since returned home or been settled elsewhere. The ban would mean that detainees cannot apply for a partner visa if they marry an Australian, and go so far as to include tourist visas, making it impossible for former detainees to visit Australia in the future.

“The government has consistently said no one who attempts to enter Australia illegally by boat will ever settle here,” Immigration Minister Peter Dutton told The Daily Telegraph. “This puts into law that crucial aspect which has been central to stopping the boats and stopping deaths at sea,” said Dutton.

As per the 1951 Refugee Convention, it is not illegal for asylum seekers to enter or attempt to enter Australia, even without a visa. A vast majority of offshore detainees whose claims have been processed have been found to be genuine refugees. A recent report by Amnesty International equated conditions on Nauru to “torture”.

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Speaking to Sky News, Labor frontbencher Brendan O’Connor, who was immigration minister during the second Rudd government, would not indicate whether the opposition would support the legislation. “With any legislation, you want to look at it and see whether in fact it’s fair and reasonable and it’s consistent with our own commitments internationally,” he said.

Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, who previously served as her party’s immigration spokesperson, tweeted that the proposed law had “dangerous echoes of the White [Australia] policy.”