This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Labor is claiming that Peter Dutton has lost control of Australia’s borders, saying 80,000 people have arrived by plane to claim asylum since 2014.

The new line of attack against the Morrison government – spearheaded by the home affairs spokeswoman, Kristina Keneally – comes as the ALP prepares to examine unlawful migration to Australia and senator Kim Carr indicates Labor will oppose a Coalition bill to prevent asylum seekers who arrived by boat ever settling in Australia.

Carr told Guardian Australia the bill was “unnecessary, arbitrary in its application and discriminatory in its effect” after a Senate committee hearing on Thursday examining the bill, which will decide the fate of 3,127 people who were taken to offshore processing from July 2013.

On Thursday the legal and constitutional affairs committee heard from the Australian Human Rights commissioner, Ed Santow, that the bill “is not compatible with human rights” because its method of banning asylum seekers from ever coming to Australia is not a “necessary, reasonable or proportionate” method to deter people attempting to come by boat.

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The Law Council’s chair of migration, Georgina Costello, urged parliament to reject the bill, which attempted to “use vulnerable, sick refugees as pawns to deter others who might come later”.

In the hearing, Carr described the measure as a “political exercise” and a “dog-whistle bill” designed to convince Australians the Coalition is tough on borders.

Home affairs department officials defended the bill, with the head of Operation Sovereign Borders, major general Craig Furini, arguing it “is consistent with international law” – in part because the home affairs minister retains a discretion to exempt individual refugees and asylum seekers from the blanket ban.

The bill would “make it harder for people-smugglers to get people to part with their money”, he said, noting that it “doesn’t invalidate or cancel existing visas”.

Officials told the committee that 3,127 people had come to Australia by boat since July 2013 and been transferred to Nauru or Papua New Guinea, with 298 people still on Nauru and 371 in Papua New Guinea, 1,084 in Australia, 619 went to the US, seven to Cambodia and another seven who have gone to other countries.

Carr asked officials about the case – first reported by Guardian Australia – of a stateless Rohingya unaccompanied minor who Dutton had agreed to let settle in Australia after intervention from the Nauruan government.

Pip De Veau, the general counsel at home affairs, said that nothing in the bill would invalidate his temporary protection visa, but conceded that at the expiration of the visa Dutton would need to exercise a discretion to let him stay.

Carr accused the government of leaving 1,084 refugees – most of who were transferred for medical treatment – in an “indefinite limbo” in Villawood detention centre, community detention or facilities such as hospitals.

On Monday the committee will return to Canberra to scrutinise the Coalition’s bill to repeal medical evacuation provisions, which is opposed by peak medical bodies and human rights groups, including the Australian Human Rights Commission, which says it will “significantly limit the right to health for refugees and asylum seekers subject to regional processing arrangements”.

But Labor will turn its attention to the 81,596 people who have arrived by aeroplane and claimed asylum since 1 July 2014. It will convene a roundtable of migration and border security experts, unions, industry and employer groups to discuss the personal, societal, economic and security impacts of the gap in Australia’s migration system.

Keneally said: “There’s nothing wrong with claiming asylum – it’s an important right – but over 90% of these people are found not to be genuine refugees.

“This, along with the number of people in Australia on bridging visas soaring past 200,000 for the first time, should be an alarm bell.”

“Home affairs minister Peter Dutton’s mismanagement and failures have seen Australia’s asylum application process and migration system being used by criminal syndicates and labour hire companies to traffic exploited workers into Australia.”