An asylum seeker who has been waiting years for an Australian visa has blasted a Labor MP over immigration laws, complaining he doesn’t want to be sucked into a life of crime but the government won’t let him work or study.
Footage of the conversation between Julian Hill, the Labor assistant minister for citizenship and multicultural affairs, and a foreign national was captured at a protest outside Mr Hill’s Dandenong office, in south-east Melbourne, on Monday.
The protest has been running for about 65 days and was orchestrated by refugee groups, some of whom say they have been waiting more than 12 years for the government to make a decision about their residency status in Australia.
In the video, which was shared on TikTok, Mr Hill was on his way to lunch when he started talking to a male protester who expressed extreme frustration over the visa scheme.
The protester is not shown in the footage.
Mr Hill said: ‘I’m pretty in touch with the community around here and talk to people … I’m aware of the issues.
Labor MP Julian Hill is pictured speaking with protesters outside his office in Dandenong
‘The government has granted 19,000 permanent visas to people who are on [temporary protection visas] and [safe haven enterprise visas].’
He explained ‘a couple of thousand’ people have moved from the bridging visas queue to the resolution of status queue, which means they have been granted permanent residency.
The protester said he was grateful to the government for granting those visas, but said many people who were rejected in the former government’s fast-track program are ‘just sitting in limbo’.
The fast-track process was an attempt by the Coalition to streamline the process, but ultimately meant individual cases were not properly reviewed, the definition of a refugee was altered, and the application was 60 pages and only available in English.
In the video, the man said: ‘Personally, I have no right to work and no right to study … So the thing is, how am I going to survive? I don’t want to go over to crime.’
Protesters have been outside Mr Hill’s office for about 64 days
Mr Hill interjected, telling the protester criminal activity would reflect badly on his visa application: ‘Don’t do that, that’ll give you character problems.’
He replied: ‘That’s the thing – I’m trying to do the right thing and the government is penalising me.’
In the video, the man explained he was in the audience during an episode of the ABC’s Q&A on September 2, when Mr Hill was a panelist and said Labor was trying to ensure all refugee cases were resolved as quickly as possible.
His comments were in response to a question by a Tamil refugee, who said three people in her community had taken their lives in the Dandenong region within the last six weeks because they were facing deportation due to the fast-track process.
Julian Hill (pictured in Parliament) is the assistant minister for citizenship and multicultural affairs
‘With 8500 people affected by the previous government’s fast-track process and denied a future here, why can’t the Labor government grant us permanent visas after 12 to 15 years in Australia?’ she asked.
Mr Hill thanked her for her question and said he was deeply sorry for the loss of those three community members.
He said: ‘It hasn’t been politically popular, and it hasn’t been without controversy from Peter Dutton, that we’ve now granted permanent protection visas to this country to 19,000 people who were stuck in limbo for ten years.
‘It does our community, it does our society, and it does our country no good to have permanently temporary migrants who have been found to be genuine refugees and owed protection by Australia.’
He said there are about 1000 cases left to process, which have lagged behind because there are complicated identity questions.
‘But more are being granted each week,’ he continued.
‘Of those people on bridging visas … there’s a lot of misinformation on social media about this, there’s about 200 people still in merits review in the tribunal, there’s about 4500 who are still in the courts in judicial review process.
‘We’ve allocated more resources to the courts to speed up those decisions, there’s now about 2000 people who were on bridging visas who were now able to apply for permanent visas who are now also in the queue.
Mr Hill explained there are about 2500 people who are not genuine refugees, some of whom were part of the former government’s fast-track process.