Labor’s “draconian” deportation bill expands ministerial powers to reverse protection findings, meaning refugees could be stripped of their status and deported, the Greens and lawyers have warned.
The controversial provision in the legislation delayed by the Senate this week could see a grandmother who fled Chile under Gen Augusto Pinochet’s bloody dictatorship forced to cooperate with deportation, Human Rights for All director Alison Battisson said.
The deportation bill, introduced to parliament on Tuesday, gives the minister powers to direct a non-citizen who is due to be deported to assist in their deportation or face a minimum of a year in prison, and to bar new visa applications from countries that refuse to accept involuntary deportations.
In an episode of the Guardian’s Australian Politics podcast to be published on Saturday, the Greens’ immigration spokesperson, David Shoebridge warns the bill also contains “a further power for the minister to revisit a positive asylum finding”.
Currently, the minister has power to revisit a finding that someone owed protection allowing them to be deported if circumstances in their country improve – but only if the person is in detention.
According to the bill’s explanatory memorandum, the new provision will “enable the revisitation of a protection finding in relation to a broader range of non-citizens”.
It will now apply to “removal pathway non-citizens”, including those on bridging visa (removal pending), general bridging visas granted on final departure grounds, and any other categories of visa prescribed by regulations.
“Where the circumstances of the person or the country in relation to which a protection finding has been made have changed, it may be necessary to revisit the protection finding,” the memorandum said.
According to the home affairs department, refugee status is “forward-looking”. “Even if a person has suffered persecution in the past, they are not a refugee by the meaning in the Act unless they have a well-founded fear of persecution and there is a real chance they will be persecuted in their home country now,” it said.
Shoebridge said the “draconian” bill contains the ministerial power “to overturn a prior positive finding, a prior grant of asylum, and then to use the powers” to compel cooperation with deportation.
“Even those who have had a determination that they are entitled to protection – this bill even raises questions about that, with fresh ministerial powers to overturn that.”
Battisson said expanding the ability to revisit protection findings is “against all principles of permanent settlement of refugees” and would harm people even where the government had no concerns about their character.
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“There are people from Central and South American countries who came in the 1970s and 80s, they are refugees but years later their countries are now technically safe – they lose protection and can be sent back,” she told Guardian Australia.
“A Chilean nonna [grandmother] who escaped Pinochet can be sent back.”
Battisson said the minister’s powers had been “massively expanded”.
Although the power seems primarily directed at those on Bridging Visa R, the bill uses a “sledgehammer to crack a walnut” and the power is much wider, she said. “It’s not well thought-through. It’s a kneejerk reaction.”
The bill has been labelled “appalling” by migrant groups because of the minister’s proposed power to designate a “removal concern country”, imposing an outright ban on any visa applications from any citizen of that country. The Greens describe this aspect as a “Trump-style travel ban”.
Shoebridge said that to hold diaspora communities “at ransom because of the failings of their government is appalling public policy”.
The bill’s main safeguard is that those who have “been found to engage Australia’s protection obligations … cannot be directed to interact with or be removed” to their country of persecution, according to the memorandum.
Shoebridge said this was an “extraordinarily minimal” protection, because many have had their refugee status determined by the “unfair” fast-track process that Labor is seeking to abolish, or lost appeal rights by failing to lodge paperwork within three or seven days of an adverse decision.
He noted although the government argued it would apply to those who have “exhausted all their legal remedies, that’s not in the bill, there’s no provision that says that in the bill”.
On Wednesday the Coalition, Greens, and Senate crossbench combined to refer the migration amendment (removal and other measures) bill to a six-week Senate inquiry.
Guardian Australia contacted the immigration minister, Andrew Giles, for comment.