The fate of a bill that aims to make it easier for Australia to return people whose refugee claims have been rejected to their home countries will rest with the Senate crossbench, after Labor and the Greens rejected it in the House of Representatives.

The bill would bring Australia’s complementary protection obligations – for people who are not deemed to be refugees but still face significant harm if returned to their home countries – into line with the statutory refugee framework.

Government MPs say the existing complementary protection framework is not protecting the people it was intended to protect, pointing to examples where people could not be returned to their countries of origin because they had sold pornography or drunk alcohol in countries where these practices were banned.

The bill would make it easier for Australia to return people if they were deemed eligible for “behaviour modification” to reduce the harm they might face in their home countries.

Labor’s Andrew Giles labelled the provision “a terribly Orwellian concept”.



The government said protections would be in place.

The amendment would make sure that “behaviour modification would not conflict with their identity or their core belief system”, the minister for development, Steve Ciobo, told the chamber.

In October the immigration minister, Peter Dutton, outlined the aim of the provision as “to reflect that some harm could be brought about by a person’s own voluntary actions – by, for example, breaking the law upon their return to the country”. In some circumstances, he said, “it is reasonable to expect a person not to engage in such actions so as to avoid a real risk of harm”.

Labor also criticised the provision that a person could receive complementary protection only if they faced significant harm in all of their country, rather than isolated regions, and that the risk must be unique to them and not indiscriminate.



Giles said the change effectively reversed the onus of proof by placing it on the applicant.



“There is a deplorable uncertainty here,” he warned. “The bill before us contains some very significant changes, and they have not been accompanied by any meaningful justifications.”

The Coalition said the amendments would close loopholes in the complementary protection system by excluding people whom it was not intended to cover without breaching Australia’s non-refoulment responsibilities.

“The bill is consistent with Australia’s protection obligations,” Ciobo said.

The Greens said the bill made Australia as bad as some of the places that asylum seekers were fleeing.

“This is about creating fortress Australia and a mean Australia so that people won’t come here in the first place,” said the Greens employment spokesman, Adam Bandt.

The bill will head to the Senate after being passed by the House on Tuesday night. As it does not have the support of Labor and the Greens, it must secure the support of six of the eight crossbenchers.



The Gillard Labor government introduced the system of complementary protection in 2011.