Muir, who helped pass an asylum seeker bill in exchange for children being released into the community, says he has concerns about the deal’s progress

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

Crossbench senator Ricky Muir, whose vote was critical in passing a controversial asylum bill late last year, has told Guardian Australia he has concerns about the process of key measures of the legislation.



The resolving the asylum caseload legacy bill passed the Senate by just one vote before Parliament rose for the Christmas break.

The omnibus legislation reintroduces temporary protection visas, changes Australia’s definition of who is eligible for refugee status and reduces the legal pathways of review once a negative determination has been made.

Then immigration minister Scott Morrison offered a number of concessions to persuade senators who were on the fence, including the Motoring Enthusiast party’s Muir, to support the legislation.

The sweeteners included the promise of work rights for bridging visa holders, and the removal of children from Christmas Island detention centre by Christmas.

All minors had been transferred from Christmas Island by 20 December. Some were released, while others were moved into detention on the Australian mainland.

Assistant immigration minister Michaelia Cash admitted during Senate question time on Tuesday that three children remain in Darwin’s Bladin centre.

Muir’s office told Guardian Australia that the senator had pressed for an answer to that question in the past, but had received no answer from the new immigration minister, Peter Dutton. “He is concerned about the children in detention,” a spokesman said.

Muir is also frustrated at the lack of progress on another one of Morrison’s proposals – the granting of work rights to 28,000 refugees on bridging visas.

Cash said in question time less than a fifth of the total number had been issued. “I can advise you that 5,400 IMAs [illegal maritime arrivals] have now been granted bridging visas with work rights.”

A spokesman for Muir said the senator would be following up the progress of the bridging visas with Dutton and Cash.

The Greens want the process expedited. “The new immigration minister should commit to honouring the deal the crossbench senators thought they were signing up to,” senator Sarah Hanson-Young said.

“He could give work rights to all bridging visa holders immediately, but the Coalition’s obsession with refugee cruelty means it may never happen.”

Refugee advocates claim that the immigration minister must individually sign off on each visa, causing the delay.

But a spokesman for Cash said that was not the case, and that the proper process and procedure for granting bridging visas must be followed.

Serina McDuff from the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre said that “the government can’t hide behind procedural reasons” when it comes to granting work rights.

A spokesman for Dutton said he expected 280 more visas to be granted in the coming days.

“Labor and the Greens opened the floodgates to tens of thousands of illegal arrivals and then left them languishing in the community without work rights. They compounded their failure by refusing to support the Coalition’s temporary protection visa legislation in 2013 which would have started the process of granting work rights a year ago,” the spokesman told Guardian Australia.

“The foresight of the crossbenchers in passing the TPV legislation in December 2014 has enabled more than 5,400 IMAs from Labor’s legacy caseload to be granted bridging visas with work rights since then.”

“The minister and Department of Immigration and Border Protection are continuing to work to grant all IMA [bridging visa] holders work rights.”