Temporary protection visa’s have to be restored, Australia can’t be a dumping ground for everyone, when things settle in countries trying to tear themselves apart, those claiming they were in danger should be sent home to rebuild their own country, simple as that. I know Australia is a great country and we should keep it that way. I also believe Australians should have first preference of all jobs, catering to people who have already used our services to the max is not acceptable. Labor and Greens keep wanting the outsiders here because they depend on these people for their votes, we need to step up and run our country by our rules. What Green/Labor need to understand is we elected a government to keep their promises and TPV’s was one of them. Scott Morrison confident of swaying Senate to temporary protection visas The Australian | September 01, 2014 12:00AM Stefanie Balogh Senior Writer Canberra IMMIGRATION Minister Scott Morrison is optimistic of securing Senate crossbench backing to restore temporary protection visas and remove all children from onshore immigration detention, accusing Labor and the Greens of being blinkered by politics. Family First senator Bob Day said he supported Mr Morrison’s efforts to resurrect TPVs, and his crossbench colleague senator David Leyonhjelm said while he was still weighing up the issue, he was “inclined’’ to lean the government’s way. “I’m supportive,’’ Senator Day said. “I had a briefing from the minister this week. I support the measures. He’s doing a very, very good job under very difficult circumstances.’’ The government vowed at the election to restore the use of TPVs for genuine refugees as part of its suite of border-protection measures including boat turn-backs and offshore processing, but the measure was twice defeated by the previous Senate. TPVs would offer work rights but would not be a pathway to permanent residency. The Greens and Labor instead want permanent visas, but the government argues this would serve as an incentive by handing people-smugglers a product to sell. Mr Morrison said yesterday he had been in discussions with crossbench senators about restoring TPVs and he was “optimistic’’. “I think the discussions I have had with the crossbenchers, which I have been waiting for, for the new Senate to come into effect, we have commenced that and I’m encouraged by their response,’’ Mr Morrison told Sky News’s Australian Agenda. “But Labor and the Greens largely dealt themselves out of wanting to get children out of detention by insisting on their political opposition to temporary protection visas.’’ Labor immigration spokesman Richard Marles said there was “no deterrence value’’ in TPVs and they were a “band-aid fix that kept people in a cycle of uncertainty and prevented them contributing to the community’’. He said when parliament rejected TPVs in December, Mr Morrison “in an act of petulance, stopped processing people’’. “What we need is the government to start processing people without delay and managing its facilities in a safe, humane and dignified manner,’’ he said. Greens immigration spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young slammed TPVs as cruel: “Doing a dirty deal with the crossbench (on TPVs) that would leave hundreds of children locked up and thousands living in limbo would be a disaster.’’ Mr Morrison also revealed yesterday that the flow of asylum-seekers into Indonesia had “dropped away 90 per cent’’. “We are also seeing that we have now, for the first time in quite a while, less than 10,000 people up in Indonesia; it has fallen below that level, and the pool of those who would seek to get on boats is draining,’’ he said. People knew the way to Australia was closed, he said, and people-smugglers were going out of business. The government has inherited a legacy caseload of people who arrived after July 19 last year, when Labor reinstated offshore processing, and are yet to have their claims processed. He said the standoff over TPVs had left the government “a little bit stranded’’ because Labor and the Greens were only offering to support permanent protection visas. “Now, that’s just not going to happen,’’ Mr Morrison said. “The Greens and Labor have steadfastly resisted temporary protection visas. That is disappointing.’’ He said if TPVs were in place, the government would have “already processed some of the 24,000 people Labor didn’t process and they’d have been found to be either refugees or not, and those who were would be living in the community with work rights and parity of benefits’’. “So the frustration of what was a clear mandate at the last election on TPVs, I think, has created an unnecessary obstacle,’’ he said. The government is in the process of removing children from detention who arrived before July 19 and they will be out by the end of the year, if not sooner. “There are only 150 that fall in that category,’’ Mr Morrison said. “Those who are in Nauru are in Nauru. They are subject to offshore processing, that’s not changing. No one is coming back from Nauru.’’ Senator Leyonhjelm, from the Liberal Democratic Party, said: “I’m considering my position and I’m probably about 51-49 inclined to support the government. “I think what the government has done in terms of getting the continuing problem under control is very good, and I applaud that. We are not having any more children dying at sea.’’ Clive Palmer, whose party has three senators and an alliance with the Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party’s Ricky Muir, has said he wants children to be released from detention centres, and greater safeguards for families. He did not respond to a request to comment. South Australian senator Nick Xenophon said: “We need to look very closely at what Angus Houston suggested in that eminent person’s panel … one of his suggestions was yes, offshore processing, but we need to increase the humanitarian intake significantly.’’
Posted on: Mon, 01 Sep 2014 05:26:39 +0000
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