The Albanese Government's Trump-inspired travel ban is draconian and hypocritical
By Jane McAdam and Regina Jefferies
On Monday night, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke posed proudly with members of the Iranian women’s soccer team granted asylum in Australia. Hours later, he introduced new laws that would slam the door on their compatriots.
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Most of Australia celebrated the news that several members of the Iranian women’s football team had been granted humanitarian protection in Australia. The government’s decision to do this – for women branded ‘traitors’ for refusing to sing the Iranian national anthem and fleeing amid apocalyptic scenes of toxic oil plumes engulfing Tehran – demonstrates exactly how the asylum system is supposed to work.
Yet, just a few hours later, the same Minister who took to social media to welcome them with open arms introduced a bill into Parliament to slam the door shut on any other of their compatriots who might seek to join them. Rather than allowing other people impacted by severe human rights violations to seek safety, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke wants to stop them from coming at all.
In a bill rushed through the House of Representatives on Wednesday, and now passed by the Senate as of Thursday evening, Burke sought sweeping powers to ban the arrival of ‘specified cohorts of non-citizens who hold temporary visas’ for up to six months at a time.
The bill empowers the government to ban people who already hold a temporary visa from coming to Australia if their country were experiencing a significant ‘event or circumstance’ - like the escalating US-Israeli war on Iran - that might suggest they wouldn’t leave once their visa expired. It means that even people who have already been granted temporary visas for work, study or tourism in Australia will not be allowed to enter. Put plainly: if the bill had already been in place, the Iranian women’s football team might never have been able to come here. This is exactly the opposite of what we should be doing.
Under international law, everyone has the right to seek asylum from persecution or other serious harm. As Australians intuitively understood when they saw the fear in the eyes of the Iranian women’s soccer team, we should protect people who face a real risk of being harmed if removed. Real people, real faces, real fear.
Australia’s draconian approach to refugees has been enabled by a process of dehumanisation and abstraction. If people are kept offshore, held in immigration detention, intercepted at sea or never enabled to leave their home country, we never get to see their faces, their fear, their reality.
Australia cannot protect everyone at risk in Iran – but no one is suggesting that’s our role. What we can do is provide at least temporary respite to people who’ve already been approved to work, study or visit family or friends here. What we saw this week was Australia’s humanitarian protection system working properly.
Fundamentally, the government’s Trump-style travel ban is unnecessary. Australian authorities can already cancel someone’s visa if they suspect they’re not a ‘genuine temporary entrant’. Importantly, this is assessed on an individual basis. This was why it was so strange when the Australian government told Ukrainians fleeing war to apply for visitor visas – usually, arriving on a visitor visa with the intention to stay as a refugee would be grounds for immediate cancellation.
The strangeness of that response is emblematic of Australia’s ad hoc responses to emergencies generally. Australia has used at least 25 types of visas to respond to humanitarian emergencies. In the past few years alone, people fleeing Ukraine, Iran, Gaza, Sudan and Afghanistan have received different visas and different treatment.
This makeshift approach is precisely why, in 2024, we proposed the creation of a framework for humanitarian emergencies – one which would enable the Australian government to provide a streamlined, equitable, predictable and effective response to assist people facing a real risk of persecution, extreme danger or other serious harm. Our proposal was hailed by many as a sensible, indeed obvious. Even Minister Burke said that ‘a lot of thought has gone into the proposal’ and that ‘some of the features described are worthy of consideration’.
In a humanitarian crisis, Australia should provide emergency protection – not shut the door with policies ripped from President Trump’s playbook. We should have an emergency visa to help certain people stuck overseas to travel to Australia quickly and safely. Eligibility should be based on sound and defensible principles, guided by good practices from other countries, as well as our own history.
For instance, Australia’s former special assistance visas (1991–2000) provided resettlement opportunities to certain categories of people with connections to Australia who came from the former Yugoslavia and Soviet Union, East Timor, Lebanon, Sudan, Myanmar, Vietnam, Sri Lanka and Cambodia, as well as Ahmadi Muslims.
What we should not do is prevent people who have already been vetted and granted a temporary visa from being able to travel to Australia. The government’s bill is complete overreach – and hastily pushed through Parliament. As a law that could have life-altering consequences, there has been no opportunity for proper scrutiny or debate. At a fast-tracked 90-minute Senate inquiry on Tuesday evening, only the Department of Home Affairs was invited to appear.
Tony Burke was beaming when he told women from the Iranian women’s soccer team that ‘they are welcome to stay in Australia, to be safe and have a home here’. A few hours later, he was determined not to offer that same opportunity to anyone else. “We’ve been in solidarity with the people of Iran against an oppressive government”, the Minister said on Wednesday. This bill is certainly an odd way of showing it.
About the authors
Jane McAdam AO is Scientia Professor of Law, ARC Laureate Fellow and Director of the Evacuations Research Hub at the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, UNSW Sydney.
Dr Regina Jefferies is a Laureate Postdoctoral Fellow at the Evacuations Research Hub at the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, UNSW Sydney, and an assistant coach for UNSW FC First Grade Women.
I understand calling it “Trump-inspired” yet we can’t forget in the leaked phone call to Turnbull, that Trump said his policies towards refugees are Australian-inspired.
Seeking asylum is NOT a crime. Why are we breaking international laws?!? Disgraceful.