Migration laws must put people before politics and profits
The Human Rights Law Centre, Asylum Seeker Resource Centre and Migrant Workers Centre will today appear before the Joint Standing Committee on Migration calling for Australia’s migration laws to centre the rights of people over punitive politics and economic profit.
Currently thousands of people across Australia are denied the basic right to live in safety, reunite with their partner and be a parent to their children. People are stuck on dead-end visas, with no way to make a permanent home in Australia. Predatory bosses exploit this uncertainty to get away with stealing the wages of workers, threatening people with visa cancellation and deportation.
With the Albanese Government poised to act on its ‘once in a generation’ migration review, we are calling for:
An ending to ‘permanently temporary’ visa status, by abolishing dead-end skilled visa pathways and walking back the visa cancellation framework;
The abolition of ‘Fast Track’ processing and permanent pathways for people subject to it;
Evacuation of people seeking asylum still held in Nauru and Papua New Guinea to Australia and permanent resettlement pathways for all those subjected to offshore detention;
Equal protections for migrant workers to take action on exploitation;
An end to deliberate family separation in migration and asylum laws.
The Albanese Government must end discrimination against people based on their visa status or how they arrived in the country. We must make sure that everyone who comes to Australia seeking a better life has a clear pathway to settle down, no matter what visa they hold.
Quotes attributed to Sanmati Verma, Managing Lawyer at the Human Rights Law Centre:
“Successive Australian government have treated migration as an extension of their economic policy, and people who migrate as nothing more than sources of skill, talent and labour for the rest of the community. That has led to a migration and asylum system based on uncertainty and insecurity.
“It is common for people to live in Australia for ten years without permanent residency, or a clear pathway towards it.
“The Albanese Government must stop discrimination against people based on their visa status or how they arrived in the country. The principle that a person’s membership of the community should be reflected in their status and entitlements must be reintroduced to the migration system, and all people, irrespective of status, must be entitled to equal protection.”
Quotes attributed to Hannah Dickinson, Principal Solicitor at the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre:
“The Albanese Government has a unique opportunity to build a fair, effective, properly resourced migration system that ensures dignity for all and a united, thriving nation. This is an opportunity we cannot afford to miss.
“This Inquiry is an important step toward ending years of indefensible and opportunistic politicisation of the lives of migrants and refugees, the legacy of which is a system that is chaotic, inhumane, extraordinarily slow, and discriminatory by design.
“Not only has this left thousands of families and individuals in limbo for years on end, barely able to survive, and living every day in fear of being forced back to the most severe forms of harm, it has frayed the fabric of Australian society, excluding people from economic participation, affecting health outcomes, and fostering disunity.”
Quotes attributed to Ragab Youssef, an engineer, recent permanent visa applicant and organiser with the Migrant Workers Centre.
“It seems to me like Australian governments think that by granting a visa, they have given a gift – that migrants owe them something, but they don’t owe them anything in return. People have often sacrificed everything to try and build a life in Australia. The months and years of their lives are not meaningless – they cannot be shunted around and just made to wait forever. It is time that the government treats us like people.”
Quotes attributed to Gabriel Dain, Acting CEO at the Migrant Workers Centre:
“Australia’s migration policy has created a two-speed job market, in which migrants are pushed to take exploitative, unsafe, and insecure jobs. Lack of pathways to permanent residence, a reliance on employer sponsorship, poor recognition of skills and qualifications, and loopholes in our anti-discrimination have put migrant workers in an incredibly vulnerable and precarious state.
“This is affecting a growing portion of our community, with a larger proportion of the Australian population holding a temporary visa than ever before. Safe, fair, and secure jobs are essential to living a life with dignity. For Australia to remain a vibrant multicultural society based on justice and fairness, we must address the aspects of our migration policy which are leading to wage theft, labour exploitation, and safety concerns faced by migrant workers.”
Media contacts:
Thomas Feng
Media and Communications Manager
Human Rights Law Centre
0431 285 275
thomas.feng@hrlc.org.au
Sam Brennan
Media and Communications Co-ordinator
Asylum Seeker Resource Centre
0428 973 324
sam.b4@asrc.org.au