The Coalition’s asylum plan repackages familiar measures that have failed before, while sidestepping its role in creating a large and growing backlog of unsuccessful applicants.

The overwhelming focus on the Australian Values aspect of Angus Taylor’s Coalition policy announcement means relatively little attention has been given to the asylum policies Taylor announced. Sadly, these are predominantly a re-hash of old ideas and an attempt to deflect from the Coalition’s role in the situation we now face with a record number of unsuccessful asylum seekers who have not departed Australia.

Taylor’s asylum policy is to “shut the door to unauthorised migrants by implementing decisive measures to deter unfounded claims and enforcing Australian law. The Coalition will:

● Introduce a Safe Country List to fast-track the refusal of unfounded protection claims from those places deemed safe countries. ● Restore Temporary Protection Visas and Safe Haven Enterprise Visas as the dominant forms of onshore protection visas for people who come here unlawfully or under false pretenses (sic). ● Provide extra funding to law enforcement to identify, deport and remove unlawful non-citizens who have exhausted their legal avenues but stay in Australia illegally. ● Stop taxpayer money funding legal aid appeals of visa cancellations.”

In announcing these policies, Taylor will want the Australian public to forget that he was Assistant Law Enforcement Minister when Australia experienced the start of the biggest labour trafficking scam abusing the asylum system in our history. The scam started with Malaysian nationals (Chart 1) and spread to Chinese nationals (Chart 2).

The........

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