Refugee advocates win eight year battle in Australia
Updated
Refugee advocates in Australia have won an eight year battle to allow some of the most vulnerable people who arrive in the country refugee protection - people who face the threat of torture, inhuman treatment or execution if returned to their own country. But they often don't meet any of the five grounds for declaring a person a refugee, including persecution because of race, religion or nationality, political opinion or membership of a particular social group. Now, Australia will change that.
Presenter: Linda Mottram, Canberra correspondent
Speakers: Laurie Ferguson, Australian parliamentary secretary for multicultural affairs; Paul Power, chief executive officer, Refugee Council of Australia; Associate Professor Jennifer Burn, The Anti-Slavery Project, University of Technology Sydney
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MOTTRAM: They're few in number, but they face immense personal risk if returned to their country of origin. Yet these people have fallen between the cracks of Australia's refugee protection system, unable to apply for or be granted refugee visas and leaving them fighting for years to win some right to stay in Australia. Canberra is now moving to offer such victims certainty. Australia's parliamentary secretary for multicultural affairs is Laurie Ferguson.
FERGUSON: For example, it is not certain that a girl who would face a real risk of female genital mutilation would always be covered by the refugee convention. Whereas she would be covered by complementary protection.
MOTTRAM: Complementary protection is the mechanism for that certainty and it should be in place by year's end. Paul Power is the chief executive officer of the Refugee Council of Australia, which has lobbied hard for the new system.
POWER: We've been talking to the Australian government for at least eight years about this issue because there have been small numbers of people who have definitely needed Australia's protection but their protection needs have fallen outside the Refugee Convention. And what has then happened is that people have had to go through a very long and difficult process and then ultimately, possibly in some cases go through the federal court, but ultimately end up putting forward a request to the minister to intervene. Now in most cases immigration ministers have intervened to stop people from being sent back to countries where they could face torture or execution but it's quite obvious that a simpler, fairer way of dealing with these issues is needed.
MOTTRAM: It's taken eight years because, Paul Power says, the political context was one of fear about opening Australia to a flood of extra refugee applicants. But he says perhaps ten people a year are involved and the change fulfils Australia's international commitment not to return a person to a situation of danger. Paul Power again.
POWER: It's quite often women actually facing terrible circumstances, such as a potential for an honour killing, a young girl facing return to a country where she may undergo female genital mutilation, women who have suffered rape and then may actually face execution as a result of that, you know people who may actually face the death penalty.
MOTTRAM: And although Australia has been granting protection by ministerial discretion in such cases, proponents of this change say discretion isn't good enough. Associate professor Jennifer Burn runs the Anti-Slavery Project at the University of Technology Sydney.
BURN: Relying on ministerial discretion is something that can be quite precarious and an applicant doesn't really have very much control over that process. But now this new bill sets out a much better scheme in terms of administrative law. So, an applicant, who is putting a case for complementary protection, based on the possibility of a very serious abuse of human rights, if they area returned to their home country, can now put their case to the department of immigration and have that case dealt with fairly, according to law in a transparent and accountable process all the way through merits review.
MOTTRAM: The change is one of a number the Rudd government has gradually introduced to ease what some have seen as an unnecessarily restrictive and punitive system under the previous conservative government of John Howard. Two other key changes this week have seen limits on work rights for bridging visa holders lifted and the abolition of the requirement for immigration detainees to pay for their detention.
