The Immigration Department has assured federal senators that a new visa devised by Minister Scott Morrison to entice Clive Palmer's support is not a "charade", an inquiry has heard.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
During an often-fiery inquiry into proposed changes to the Migration Act, Immigration officials told Labor Senator Jacinta Collins that they were working "very hard to stand up" the Safe Haven Enterprise Visas (SHEVs).
There are scant details are about the new five-year visa which will be offered to some of the 30,000 asylum seekers who arrived under the Labor government where they will be resettled in a rural area and given working rights.
Mr Morrison said in September that the government would introduce SHEVs, which would allow asylum seekers to eventually apply for other onshore visas. At the time, it was understood asylum seekers could eventually be given permanent residency if they fulfil the requirements of the other onshore visas. They would also be offered temporary protection visas if the deal was passed.
The SHEV was integral to Mr Palmer, leader of the Palmer United Party (PUP), giving his support to the government's changes.
"We want to know whether PUP has been sold a pup," Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said.
But if the act is passed by the Senate it could also allow Australia to neglect its human rights obligations under international law, human rights lawyers and academics argued.
The Refugee Council of Australia's chief executive officer, Paul Power, told the inquiry he had not seen such extraordinary changes to refugee law in his eight years' experience.
"This is the most troubling piece of legislation in terms of refugee law," he said.
The key concerns include removing international legal accountability, fast-tracking refugee assessments that do not allow any right of appeal, and removing references to the Refugee Convention in Australian law.
Inquiry chairman Ian MacDonald spent most of the inquiry defending the government's changes, while Ms Hanson-Young attacked it.
"If we dealt with refugees through UNHCR in an orderly way then none of this would be important," Mr MacDonald said.
Ms Hanson-Young said: "These changes, that will see the very definition of what it means to be a refugee changed, are the most extreme example of Tony Abbott's war against refugees to date."
The inquiry, run by the legal and constitutional affairs legislation committee received 5712 submissions into the suggested changes. The majority were against them.
