Immigration Minister Tony Burke's delayed migration announcement is an incoherent mess seeking to take Australia back to the Abbott era in a race to the bottom with One Nation.
Labor is opening new detention centres across the country and recruiting hundreds of Border Force compliance officers, to force people into these places. This will mean hundreds of people held in privately run prisons, despite committing no crime and facing no court.
The government already has extensive powers over visas. They have chosen to use them to keep hundreds of thousands of people on temporary visas for years, and deny people a fast and fair process.
Minister Bourke has made it clear he only wants to work with the Liberals to take Australia back to the days of Tony Abbott. This uniparty is the exact reason politics on immigration has shifted to the right and allowed space for One Nation.
The Minister talked about 'speeding up processing' of visas, but this Labor government has overseen a significant blow out in wait times. Partner visas wait times have doubled in recent years to 40 months, parent visas are now 30 years. None of the changes he has offered will address this. The only mention of family visas was making it harder for families to unite.
The Greens do not want people waiting for a humanitarian visa for 9 years or 3 years for a partner visa. If the Government wants to pass legislation that genuinely improves our immigration system including fixing wait times, the Greens are here to offer a pathway.
If the Labor Government wants a fair and fast processing of family and protection visas the Greens are here. That means fully funding Home Affairs processing to get over the significant backlogs, it means ensuring there are trusted funded legal bodies that assist with migration applications acting as an initial triage, to make the fair and timely decisions on visas needed.
Senator Larissa Waters, Leader of the Australian Greens said:
"Labor wants to take Australia back to the Abbott era of immigration policy. Back to Tony Abbott's playbook. Back to 2015 - an era that Donald Trump says inspired his immigrant crackdown.
"They're not doing that because it will have any impact on the housing crisis, or the cost of living. They're trying to out-do Pauline Hanson.
"Labor is letting Pauline Hanson, and One Nation's billionaire backer Gina Rinehart, set the terms of their political agenda.
"Instead of taking on the big corporations that are driving this cost of living crisis, Labor is following One Nation and the Liberals into a culture war that they will lose.
"There is no out-Paulining Pauline. If you fight on her territory, you lose, and put countless people into the harm of being abused for their background, culture, and the colour of their skin.
"Labor has lost the plot and its soul. They need to stop trying to out-do One Nation."
Senator David Shoebridge, Greens spokesperson on Immigration, said:
"Today we heard Labor's answer on immigration, and it's to build new immigration jails and to send hundreds of uniformed Border Force officers into communities to arrest people.
"This is where Labor has sunk to, reheating Tony Abbot's immigration attacks, with a 2026 Donald Trump twist.
"Labor's new immigration jails will be run by the same exploitative US private prison multinational that is already abusing people's rights in immigration detention here.
"If the Minister doesn't want these policies to be compared to ICE, he should not behave like ICE.
"We know how to have a fast, fair and effective immigration program, and it starts with processing substantive visas. That means fully funding the Home Affairs to get over the significant backlogs, and funding trusted legal bodies to assist with migration applications acting as an initial triage.
"There are a huge portion of people on temporary visa because they are waiting for the Government to process their substantive visa.
"There are double the number of people on bridging visas today then there were three years ago as a result of deliberate Labor policy.
"When the far right blames migrants for the housing crisis, stagnating wages, underfunded healthcare and education you would expect Labor to fight back. Instead they join them.
"Labor isn't fighting off One Nation, they are empowering them. At its core the reason for this is they share a political strategy of using migrants as a shield for their lack of policies to make people's lives better. That's what happened again today.
Senator Mehreen Faruqi, Deputy Leader of the Australian Greens and spokesperson for Tertiary Education said:
"Labor is effectively telling international students: Give us your money, prop up our universities, and subsidise our system, but don't expect to bring your families with you. Don't expect to be able to build your life here.
"Labor's move to force people to choose between their family and a chance to study in Australia is soulless mimicry of One Nation tactics. Pauline Hanson and her billionaire backers might as well be ghostwriting Labor's immigration policy.
"International students have long been used as cash cows to prop up our universities, and now they are once again being used as scapegoats for this government's own policy failures.
"International students and their families are not political fodder to be used at the whim of political parties. They are people who come here to study and contribute so much to our campuses and our communities in ways that go far beyond the exorbitant fees they pay. They deserve respect and support, not contempt and disregard.
"These changes won't build a single public home or bring down rents or grocery bills. They won't make Australia a fairer, better place to live. But they will hurt people. They will separate families. They will punish students."
