TEMPORARY PROTECTION VISAS WILL LEAVE ASYLUM SEEKERS IN PERMANENT LIMBO

Immigration Minister Scott Morrison is relegating 30,000 asylum seekers to a life of ongoing uncertainty and mental distress by refusing to process their refugee claims until the Senate allows Temporary Protection Visas.

The re-introduction of TPVs would be a punitive and harmful measure destined to create an underclass of refugees prevented from properly rebuilding their lives and fully participating in the Australian community.

Concerns about a TPV regime include:

• Refugees on a Temporary Protection Visa are forced to re-prove their refugee status every three years, leaving them in a permanent state of uncertainty.It means they are unable to fully settle, secure meaningful work, take out a loan or make permanent arrangements for themselves or their children.

  This compounds the mental health issues that many are experiencing as a result of persecution and torture they experienced in their home country and the state of anxious limbo they are currently enduring, as they wait for their refugee claims to be finalised.

• People on Temporary Protection Visas are also denied the right to family reunion. 

  When then-Prime Minister John Howard first introduced TPVs in 2000, it left the wives and children of many TPV-holders with no choice but to make their way to Australia by boat, as this was the only way they could re-unite with their loved ones.In 2001, 353 asylum seekers drowned in the tragic SIEV-X disaster – most of the 288 women and children on board were family members of TPV holders already in Australia.

• Under the Howard regime, some 90 per cent of TPV holders were eventually granted permanent residency, proving that the majority of asylum seekers coming to Australia require long-term protection.TPVs are inadequate in meeting their protection needs and undermine Australia’s international obligations to provide proper protection to refugees.

  The Government’s own expert panel on asylum seekers has noted that: “More of the world’s refugees are in protracted exile than ever before, and for longer periods.”*

• The other disturbing aspect of Mr Morrison’s determination to re-introduce Temporary Protection Visas is his attempt to hold the Senate to ransom over the issue.Refusing to process the refugee claims of 30,000 people until the Senate passes TPVs is a form of blackmail, undermining our democratic process and bypassing Mr Morrison’s obligations to assess people’s eligibility for a visa in a timely manner.

Mr Morrison claims that he feels a great moral burden in his job.

It’s time he relieved himself of some of that burden by immediately processing refugee claims for the 30,000 people living in limbo in our community and in detention facilities, including the hundreds of children currently left without a future, and issuing refugees with permanent protection.

Serina McDuff, Director Advocacy

 Media enquiries 0407 683 664

*Report of the Expert Panel on Asylum Seekers (August 2012) – Australian Government, p 62