Mr Julian Hill MP
Additional comment on the issue of SHEV and TPV holders is warranted given the evidence received, building on the last part of section 4 of the Committee’s report.
There are approximately 17,400 SHEV and TPV holders in Australia. The majority of these people arrived by boat nearly a decade ago, risking their lives on a dangerous and expensive journey, fleeing war and persecution.
They have been living in Australia for up to 10 years, some even longer. They have been accepted by Australia to be genuine refugees.
As the Department of Home Affairs acknowledged during the inquiry their employment outcomes are excellent - prior to the pandemic 87 per cent of SHEV holders were in paid employment. Contributing to the Australian community, paying taxes.
Yet as the Committee heard, for the overwhelming majority of these people - these genuine refugees - there is no realistic pathway to permanency. The false promise offered by the SHEV of a pathway to permanency is, for most of these people, illusory. For a decade they have had limited access to the Adult Migrant English program, no ability to study and no hope of being able to meet the conditions of permanent visas they could theoretically apply for.
Instead, genuine refugees have been condemned by the policies of the Australian government to become members of a permanent, insecure underclass of temporary migrants in Australian society.
They are condemned to a life lived in limbo, hopping from temporary visa to temporary visa, unable to put down roots and contribute fully to Australia with the security that comes from permanent residence status. Thousands of these people have been separated from their children for a decade, families kept apart and broken with no hope in sight. Thousands of people in my community are stuck in this situation. I know them, I hear their stories and witness their pain.
There is no real prospect in the short or medium term of security improving in their homelands so it is safe enough for them to return. They are in effect permanently temporary refugees, safe but never secure in our country.
The Committee, indeed the Parliament and our nation, must ask at what point can these people simply become Australians? Is it after 10 years here? 15 years? 20 years? When they’ve lived more than half their lives in Australia could they then just be Australian?
The very notion of permanently temporary refugees is a nonsense. It does our nation and Australian society no credit and no good to have a permanent underclass living amongst us.
Resolution of these issues is a much broader problem and outside the scope of this inquiry into the Working Holiday Maker Program, but SHEV and TPV holders deserve and demand serious, thoughtful and creative attention by the Government, not stale talking points about ‘boat people’. There has long been bipartisan support for tough border protection policies and the government well knows it. Quite simply, humane resolution of this issue is possible without restarting the boats, but to date it has not been politically convenient for the government to address.
During the inquiry the Refugee Council of Australia put forward a proposal to offer permanent residency to SHEV and TPV holders who undertook a year of work in a regional area in industries suffering critical labour shortages. The Committee received compelling evidence from the Australian Hazara community broadly in support.
There is a critical workforce shortage right now in regional Australia, exacerbated by reduced temporary migration resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, and there is no single solution. Australia needs as many people as possible - Australian citizens, permanent residents and temporary migrants - to help with the harvest and other critical work over the next 12 months and beyond.
With the right incentives, it is clear that SHEV and TPV holders could make a significant contribution to help fill critical labour shortages in regional Australia. I know from my own electorate that people would be prepared to move and undertake this work if they were assured of permanent residency or had a realistic pathway.
To be clear, my personal view is that it is well past time that SHEV and TPV holders, as genuine refugees, should simply be granted permanency, subject to health and character checks. After a decade here, and multiple assessments that they are genuine refugees who cannot safely return home, they should not have to abandon their lives and jobs to go and pick fruit to be allowed to stay.
But resolution of the broader question is outside the scope of this inquiry and in any event, I expect government MPs would be politically constrained at present from supporting real change.
So instead this inquiry threw up the opportunity for a creative bipartisan solution and response that would at least help some of these people while meeting critical labour shortages in regional Australia. Public comments in support of a creative solution were made by Government members during the inquiry and in the media however the Committee’s final report falls short of a courageous recommendation for change. The Committee’s findings and recommendations do at least represent a small step - a baby step - in the right direction and I thank the Chair and government members of the Committee for listening patiently.
Pending a broader resolution of the issues facing SHEV and TPV holders, I encourage the government to take up the spirit of the recommendations and provide stronger incentives and a more realistic pathway to permanency for these genuine refugees, understanding that this could be of immediate practical benefit to the agricultural industry and regional Australia.
In particular I encourage my Parliamentary colleagues from the National Party to find their voice on this issue; to back the farmers and the refugees and say in public what they say in private.