Rudd Government: long way to go before asylum seekers have a fair go

8 May 2008 - Asylum Seeker Resource Centre Media Release

The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre believes it is inappropriate and unjust for the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship to continue making decisions under a refugee and humanitarian system he has acknowledged is flawed and has committed to overhauling. The Minister has made so far 730 decisions under this faulty system.

The Minister has explicitly stated that he is wrestling with the very issue of Ministerial power, stating that:

“ministerial intervention offers no guarantee of fairness. There is no way of really knowing what factors influence the minister’s decision in individual cases. And there is no avenue of appeal from a bad decision, and no way to prevent an abuse of power. There is no consistency in the decision making because different ministers have different personalities and different ways of thinking.”

Yet whilst the Minister expressly states this, he is still using these very powers, which he has condemned as flawed, unaccountable and untenable.

In the absence of a complimentary system of protection, Ministerial intervention is currently the only check that remains in our immigration system for people who have been found not to be refugees. It is internationally accepted that the Refugee Convention and law does not accommodate all compelling humanitarian cases. Whilst it is accepted that not all cases merit a Ministerial intervention we are concerned that those cases, which do, are being refused by the Minister under the current system.

All of the following clients have compelling humanitarian cases and the fact that they have all been refused highlights the serious failures within our existing refugee system. They are among 42 out of 43 ASRC cases that the Minister has refused so far. This is the highest refusal rate which the ASRC has faced under any Minister for Immigration.

These cases fall within the following patterns: a disregard for Australian family units of which these people are part; risk of returning people who have been tortured to their countries of origin and a disregard of serious psychological and physical ill–health.

Examples of cases refused:

1. A single young woman from Ethiopia who was trafficked, enslaved by her employer and subjected to horrific abuse;

2. An elderly couple from East Timor whose 8 of 9 children are in Australia (6 of whom are permanent residents), who fled violence and who would be destitute upon return and for whom the Refugee Review Tribunal (RRT) flagged humanitarian considerations being appropriate for the Minister;

3. A family from a persecuted ethnic minority in the Ukraine whose 6-year-old daughter was born in Australia and where a suicide risk was flagged for the father. Yesterday, upon being told of his recent Ministerial refusal he attempted suicide at the ASRC in front of his son.

4. A young Kurdish man from Turkey who had been detained and tortured in his home country and there remains a real risk that he will be tortured upon return;

5. A young man from China who was a member of an underground Christian church and against whom there is a warrant for an arrest for his religious beliefs and who faces detention and torture upon return;

6. A man from Sri Lanka who has been married to an Australian citizen for two years and cannot return to apply for a Spouse Visa because there is a warrant for his arrest as a result of his political membership;

7. A woman from Sri Lanka whose 9 siblings are all Australian citizens, whose daughter is a permanent resident of Australia and where there are no members of her or her husband’s family remaining in their country;

8. A man of Tamil ethnicity from Sri Lanka who has been in Australia for 12 years and is the sole carer for his 91 year old mother who is in the queue for an Aged Parent Visa in Australia;

9. A Sri Lankan father who has been in Australia for 10 years and whose immediate family including his mother and 3 out of 4 siblings are Australian citizens or residents and whose wife’s two brothers and parents were killed during the tsunami;

10. A 63-year-old East Timorese woman with a large extended family in Australia including her sister, two children and grandchildren who due to the violence in her country has not been able to locate her remaining family in East Timor.

The ASRC calls on this government to stop making Ministerial decisions until an appropriate overhaul of the system is in place and to fix our refugee system.

Kon Karapanagiotidis
CEO, Asylum Seeker Resource Centre
Media enquiries: Kon Karapanagiotidis on (03) 9326 6066