What is the Migration Amendment (Removal and Other Measures) Bill?
In late March 2024, the Migration Amendment (Removal and Other Measures) Bill was rushed through the House of Representatives with false urgency. This Bill gives the Minister for Immigration an unprecedented new power to require a person to do anything necessary to facilitate their removal from Australia, with five-year jail terms for failing to comply. The Bill also allows the Minister to impose a Trump-style travel ban by preventing visa applications from citizens of deemed ‘removal concern countries.’ The Bill has now been delayed and will require an inquiry. You can read the joint media release from Democracy in Colour, HRLC, and ASRC on this bill here.

What can I do to stop this Bill?
Right now, a short government inquiry is accepting submissions into these proposed laws set out in the Bill. We are calling for people to write submissions into the government’s Migration Amendment (Removal and Other Measures) Bill 2024. 

To guide you through the process, we have created a Submission Writing Guide. Submissions from individuals in the community are important for the inquiry to consider, especially if there are elements of these laws that may impact you directly. This is a key moment that could influence what these laws eventually look like when they return to parliament in May. You can request that your submission is kept confidential or published anonymously.

Email your submission directly to legcon.sen@aph.gov.au with the subject line Migration Amendment Submission.

What will this Bill do? 
The measures contained in this bill are discriminatory. They would allow the government to discriminate against entire countries of people based purely on their nationality. As well as committing people fleeing persecution and harm to a cycle of detention and jail. Rather than helping these people to live the life that we all deserve, respecting their human rights and abiding by international law, the government is trying to further punish people – including people who have already served up to a decade of immigration detention. Democracy in Colour is recommending that this bill not be passed in any form.

The main issues and concerns with this bill are:

• • Coercion of migrants and refugees
    It would give the minister the power to force people to do things that would facilitate their deportation, potentially to a country where they fear persecution or significant harm, or risk a prison sentence
  • Criminalisation
    Putting people in prison for at least 1 year and up to 5 years will not coerce them into returning to countries where they risk persecution or death (some of these people have been in detention for 10 years already), it will only extend and worsen their suffering.
  • Reversal of protection findings
    Allowing the Minister to decide that a person who was previously found to be a refugee is no longer owed protection. This would allow the person to be deported to the country they fled from.
  • Imposing a Travel ban
    It would give the minister the power to ban entire countries of people from applying for a visa which is discriminatory, excluding people based on their nationality. This has the potential to separate families, deport people back to countries where they may face persecution, and other dire unintended consequences.
  • Extreme powers that it gives a single minister
    If passed, these laws would allow the immigration minister to decide which countries are “removal concern countries” and therefore prevent people from those countries from entering Australia. There is no mechanism to decide this outside of the minister’s opinion and consultation with the Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs. This is an extreme overreach of power.

Helpful Links
Submission Writing Guide
This guide includes useful tips and a template submission to make this process as simple as possible. Read it here.

Submission Writing Workshop
Democracy in Colour is running an online workshop for those who may have never written a submission before and want some help. This will also be a great opportunity to write submissions together with like-minded people. 
Date: Tuesday 9 April 2024
Time: 7pm AEDT | 6.30pm ACDT | 6pm AEST | 4pm AWST
Register here

Migration Amendment (Removal and Other Measures) Explainer
Human Rights Law Centre

Key dates
Friday 12 April 2024
Submissions due

Monday 15 April 2024 
Public Senate Hearing

Tuesday 7 May 2024
Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee Report due