Giles accused the Liberals of having “more positions on this bill than I can count”.
“Peter Dutton and the Liberal Party spent the last decade demonising migrants, refugees and their families. They are dividing communities at a time when Australians need to pull together,” Giles said.
Coalition senator Paul Scarr says there are “real-world consequences” for vulnerable communities if Labor’s bill is passed.Credit: Oscar Colman
Scarr is the deputy chair of a parliamentary committee that will put recommendations to the government by May 7 after hearing from multicultural organisations, lawyers, human rights experts, and former immigration officials, who all strongly criticised aspects of the bill, including the broad reach it would have.
The Senate inquiry also heard from Piumetharshika Kaneshan, a 19-year-old Canberra student whose family is fighting in the Federal Circuit Court to stay in Australia after arriving more than a decade ago, as well as Parichehr Shakiba, a lawyer whose mother faces deportation under the bill after failing to be granted protection.
Scarr said the women and their families didn’t fall within the cohort of more than 150 people released from immigration detention after the High Court outlawed indefinite detention in November, adding: “These are individuals who are within the thousands of other people who potentially are captured by the powers in this legislation.”
Giles and Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil have both said the purpose of the bill is to ensure the government can remove people who have exhausted all legal avenues to stay, but Scarr said the stories of Kaneshan, Shakiba and others like them undoubtedly presented a “complicating factor”.
Minister for Immigration Andrew Giles and Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
“Some people have come here as children and they are now embedded in Australia, in many cases contributing to Australia. We have an obligation, I think, to consider their interests and their concerns,” Scarr said.
“We’re talking about people, the witnesses we’ve heard from, the two young women who are contributing to the Australian community, complied with our laws and had the bravery and courage to speak before the committee, and we all need to reflect on their individual circumstances and lived experiences.”
Scarr said the minimum mandatory sentencing contained in the bill heightened the need for scrutiny, and there were questions about whether the bill sufficiently considered children’s rights, particularly in circumstances where the government could direct parents to do something on their child’s behalf.
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He also reflected concerns raised by asylum seeker legal groups during the inquiry that circumstances in various countries had worsened in the time various people facing deportation were fighting to overturn their protection claims, citing Afghanistan, which fell to the Taliban in 2021.
“It is not simple. It is complicated, and we need to get to the bottom of how each and every one of those potential cohorts who have been identified by the NGOs would be impacted by this bill,” he said.
Coalition sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said earlier this month the opposition was expected to introduce amendments after the Senate inquiry that would make the legislation fairer, including by making it easier for relatives from black-banned countries to travel to Australia.
Scarr said it was too early for him to make recommendations, adding he and Coalition home affairs spokesman James Paterson were submitting dozens of questions on notice to determine the impacts of the powers on vulnerable people.
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