Mr McGAURAN (Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs) (10:11 AM) —The member for Batman’s constructive points are noted. I think it is safe to say that the preferred tenderer would have had to convince the selection panel that all areas of need, including the northern suburbs, for recent arrivals were covered. But I assure the member for Batman I will satisfy myself as to that point.

My final comments are related to the very good contribution by the member for Reid, who again demonstrated an impressive grasp of the portfolio’s complexities and the competing forces at work because we are dealing with people’s lives. I was mightily impressed by his comments regarding offshore refugee and humanitarian applicants. He started off yesterday by saying, if I can paraphrase him, that African settlement would not be done properly because he did not think sufficient funds were being allocated to it. I have to admit that at times you feel you are riding a wave: sometimes I finish a day thinking that the African settlement is the most difficult, challenging and at times seemingly impossible task the government has taken on; but on other days, when I meet refugees who have come from the Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea, Burundi, Rwanda, the Congo and Ethiopia and who have settled and are gainfully employed, then my spirits soar. I must say that I meet a great many more success stories than I meet failures. It is still under way. It is really only in the last three years that we have been receiving upwards of 6,000 or 7,000 African refugees from our 13,000 overall intake, and that is going to be at least the number for the foreseeable future.

It is the most difficult in our history—I happily concede that. You would probably have to go back to the Indochinese refugee settlement between 1975 and the early 1980s for anything comparable. But, even so, most of the African refugees are from rural areas and they have not had the education standards so their literacy and numeracy levels are low, especially compared to those of the Australian society to which they are coming. Then there was the Lebanese refugees program following the civil war during the 1980s and they were highly educated and could integrate into Australian society relatively quickly. Then there was the Chinese refugee flow post Tiananmen Square and they were basically middle class. Then the nineties were dominated by the former Yugoslav republic refugees who were highly educated, in refugee terms, and spoke English and it was a lot easier for them. Since 2000 it has been Middle Eastern and now African refugees. They present enormous challenges, but they are willing, given the trauma and torture they are escaping, to integrate into Australia as quickly as possible.

I have met refugees at the airport, and you just choke back your tears—because you cannot indulge yourself when you are trying to assist them; you are not much help to them if you are blubbering on their arrival—at the joy and the gratitude they show when you welcome them to Australia and embrace them as people fleeing the worst circumstances imaginable of human deprivation in the refugee camps.

Settlement is a noble and important cause that Australia has embarked on. We are one of only three countries in the world doing it—Canada, America and us; no-one else is—and we should be very proud as Australians. But it does mean, as the member for Reid exhorts, that enormous responsibilities for the government and the community at large come with this to do it properly.

Our intensive settlement assistance is regarded as the best in the world—both the Americans and the Canadians come here and look at it. We want to improve on it. We want to do it better. So I do not agree with my friend the member for Reid when he says that African settlement will not be done properly. It is being done properly but that is not to underestimate the daily challenges. How do you take people from those shocking circumstances and settle them in Australia quickly so that they can reach their goals—their ambitions for themselves and their families—and contribute to Australia as they want to? We wrestle with this. (Extension of time granted)

The member for Reid raised another major point. He is annoyed with regard to skilled migration—which the government has put such heavy emphasis on—that the onus of proof is still not on employers to detect and weed out illegal employment and the like. I do not agree entirely with that. We have taken a number of initiatives to cut down on illegal working. We have the entitlements verification online system, which allows registered users—employers and educational and other institutions—to check the status of potential employees or people seeking benefits for study.

Some states have agreed for certain licensing and registration activities to include a check on the immigration status of employees. As the member for Reid would know, the security industry in New South Wales has been dogged by illegal workers or ‘taxi licences’. We have some Commonwealth activities now as part of the checking of immigration status of people working at airports and sea ports and especially in the context of the issuance of security cards. The Migration Agent Task Force was established in June 2003 to target migration agents acting unlawfully, particularly in submitting spurious applications for visitors to secure work rights and the like. You have to be pretty careful about putting the onus entirely on employers in a legislative sense. Talk to the orchardists or the citrus industry growers and the like and see how they feel about being the immigration police men and women, as the case may be. So it is constantly under consideration and we are tackling it on a number of fronts.

Finally, I notice the member for Reid was talking this morning about assisting refugees who arrive in Australia under the refugee and humanitarian program to get assistance in completing migration forms to bring out close relatives. He makes a very good point. Of the 13,000 in the program each year, 6,000 are refugees from camps, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees nominates them. The other 7,000 are humanitarian entrants who are sponsored by refugees. Obviously, refugees want to bring out family members, but often they have not settled or integrated themselves and have made commitments of sponsorship regarding housing and income support that they cannot honour. I do not blame them for that. Of course they want loved ones to be free from the same misery that they had to endure for so long, and we sympathise. You have to be a bit careful, though, because you will just compound the problems of the refugees themselves seeking to settle.

I am very conscious of this migration advice because it is part of a settlement process, as the member for Reid alluded to. If a refugee is worrying enormously about the fate, security, safety and health of family members, then they are not going to be able to concentrate on settling their own family, finding employment and becoming part of the community. So I am looking very closely at how we can ramp up migration advice to refugees to sponsor out family members. I thank the member for Reid for his contribution.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER (Hon. IR Causley)—The question is that the proposed expenditure for the Immigration, Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs portfolio be agreed to.

Question agreed to.