Immigration Minister issues new visa direction
Community safety will take priority when considering whether to deport non-citizens convicted of serious crimes. The Immigration Minister has issued the new directive after the administrative appeals tribunal overturned dozens of visa cancellations and allowed convicted criminals to stay in Australia.
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00:00 This new direction, which will be known as Direction 110, explicitly says that community
00:09 safety must be the highest priority in considerations about visa appeals before the Administrative
00:16 Appeals Tribunal. It also says that consideration of the degree of offending, the significance
00:25 of it, the seriousness of it, and also family and domestic violence behaviour and the degree
00:31 of that should be paramount in terms of considerations on the minds of those making the decisions
00:38 at the AAT. It still retains reference to the strength of connections that the particular
00:46 person has to Australia, but to a lesser degree than the Direction 99, which will be in play
00:55 until later this month on June 21. That's significant because this particular paragraph
01:02 about referencing the connections between these people and Australia is what has led
01:10 to the decision-making process of some of those before the AAT being that - on the AAT,
01:18 rather - being that they should not overturn the visas because of those connections. Now,
01:25 the reason that this reference to the connection to Australia was put in place in the first
01:30 place was to appease some of the concerns of the New Zealand Government, long-held concerns
01:36 that citizens from New Zealand that had been resident in Australia for significant periods
01:43 of time, for the majority of their life, were being deported after being convicted of crimes
01:49 back to New Zealand and becoming an issue for New Zealand, whereas they had not lived
01:55 there and had very few connections there. So we heard this announcement about the wording
02:01 of this reworked, this revised direction this morning from Minister Andrew Giles, and he
02:09 insists that this puts great focus on community safety as the main consideration. Take a listen.
02:20 Consistent with the practice of former changes to similar directions, the existing Direction
02:28 99 will be revoked on the 21st of June when Direction 110 comes into effect. There are
02:34 a small number of cases, around 10, that will be decided under the existing Direction. Consistent
02:41 with the protocol I have put in place, I'm looking at these cases very closely, and where
02:47 appropriate I will consider cancellation of any visas granted back in the national interest.
02:53 So Nicole, how has this change been received? Well, we've heard a lot from the Opposition
02:59 Leader Peter Dutton, who has been critical of this whole process, says there's been delays
03:04 in acting on this serious outcome of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal's decisions. It must be noted
03:12 that the Immigration Minister Andrew Giles has referred to the decision to reissue, re-grant
03:20 visas or overturn his decision to cancel them from this cohort as one lacking common sense.
03:27 But the Opposition Leader has said that this change put forward now will do little in terms
03:34 of changing the outcome. He believes that we'll still see similar scenarios as those
03:39 that have been playing out in recent weeks and months. He says that the Australian Government
03:45 has been too quick to rush to address concerns raised by New Zealand and put the concerns
03:53 and those priorities before the safety of the Australian community. Here's what he's
04:00 had to say. It should have immediate effect. It should
04:04 be retrospective if at all possible. And I can't believe that it's taken this long to
04:10 make such a minor adjustment, which in the end is still going to allow criminals to stay
04:13 here. We've also heard from the New Zealand Prime
04:18 Minister, Christopher Luxon, this afternoon, who maintains that New Zealand nationals with
04:24 no real connection to New Zealand shouldn't be deported back there if they have been in
04:30 Australia for the majority of their lives and then go on to be convicted of a crime,
04:36 a serious offence that would otherwise result in deportation. He says the New Zealand Government
04:42 will closely monitor the outcome of this revised direction which comes into effect later this
04:50 month. And he also pointed to a meeting taking place this afternoon between both Australian
04:57 and New Zealand authorities, the departments, and was looking forward to hearing some more
05:03 about what was seen as being the outcomes of this change there. So further information
05:10 still to be received by the New Zealand Government who have been quite critical of this decision.
05:15 [BLANK_AUDIO]