This Private Senator's Bill is one of a number of Migration Act Amendment Bills which I have tabled over the past six months. This Bill seeks to repeal the Migration Legislation Amendment Act (No. 6) 2001 to remove the unjust restrictions it placed on the definition of certain key terms used by the Federal Court and the Refugee Review Tribunal in determining refugee status, which has resulted in a narrowing of eligibility for protection visas.

The Senate committee inquiry examining the 2001 bill was prematurely aborted due to the bill being rushed on for debate in the Senate in September 2001. This resulted in an appalling miscarriage of the Senate’s committee process and a truncated report which was unable to make recommendations to the Senate.

The 2001 Act is a breach of our international law obligations of non-refoulement . The basis of it provided for a tightening of the definitions of key terms interpreted by the RRT and the courts when determining whether a person is a refugee and whether Australia is under an obligation not to return a person to a place where he or she is at risk of persecution.

It is important to note that the Refugees Convention does not contain a right of asylum for people who satisfy the definition of ‘refugees’. Refugees have no direct right to gain entry to a country of refuge. The only obligation contained in the Convention is to guarantee non-refoulement , so, once refugees are in Australia there is an obligation not to return them to their place of persecution.

Article 33 of the Refugees Convention provides:

(1)   `No Contracting State shall expel or return (“refouler”) a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.

(2)   The benefit of the present provision may not, however, be claimed by a refugee whom there are reasonable grounds for regarding as a danger to the security of the country in which he is, or who, having been convicted by a final judgement of a particularly serious crime, constitutes a danger to the community of that country.

The Democrats had serious concerns about attempts to fix the meaning of the terms used in the Refugees Convention as they were understood in 1951, when one of the strengths of the Convention has been its ability to adapt to changing international conditions over its fifty year history. I believe that this has resulted in genuine victims of new forms of persecution being excluded from Australia, a situation which is totally unacceptable. I commend this bill to the Senate.