Reports suggest the Albanese Government is considering removing appeal rights and work rights from people and families seeking protection in Australia. If implemented, these proposals would weaken fundamental safeguards in a system where mistakes can have life-or-death consequences.
We want Australia to be a place where people can seek review of incorrect or unfair decisions. Australia’s refugee status determination system is already inaccessible and deeply flawed. The Department can and does get decisions wrong. Where the consequences of an incorrect decision include detention or forced return to persecution, violence, or other serious harm, independent review is an essential safeguard that promotes accountability and fair decision-making.
If people seeking protection are prevented from working while they wait for decisions that can take months or years, many families will be pushed into poverty and dependence through no fault of their own. The consequences for dignity, health, child wellbeing, and community participation would be profound.
A strong government does not respond to political pressure by denying people seeking protection the right to work or the right to a fair review. It responds by ensuring decisions are timely, transparent, and just. It’s straightforward: a fair system is properly resourced, with quick, consistent, fair processes and access to advice and assistance for refugees to help resolve cases early. It gives people the ability to meet their basic needs with dignity while they wait for a decision. It tackles the workplace exploitation and modern slavery disproportionately affecting migrant communities by disrupting its operators, rather than feeding those systems by pushing people into vulnerability.
Stripping rights from vulnerable people will not fix delay or inefficiency. It will simply shift the human cost onto individuals, families, and communities across Australia.
Unjustified policy attacks on migrant and refugee communities feed the racism and hatred dividing communities across the globe. They erode the critical democratic protections all members of the Australian community rely on.
The good news is that the decision has not yet happened. So we are calling on you to make your voice heard to turn this around.
We encourage you to call your MP today and urge the Government to protect access to justice, preserve work rights, and uphold the fundamental democratic safeguards that underpin Australia’s legal system.
Please find the Bill here.