Sign up: AU Breaking News email<\/a><\/p>\nThe bill itself does not specifically name a country, but a briefing document circulated to MPs and senators, and seen by Guardian Australia, references the situation in the Middle East.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe current situation in the Middle East demonstrates how quickly the circumstances can change for visa applicants and for those non-citizens who already hold a temporary visa but have not yet travelled to Australia, and for whom a visa application now, would likely be unsuccessful,\u201d the briefing note said.<\/p>\n
In a snap hearing on Tuesday evening, the home affairs department admitted it had only began drafting the proposed changes on Friday.<\/p>\n
The department\u2019s immigration head, Clare Sharp, revealed there were about 7,200 Iranians with temporary visas for Australia. Across the region, the figure surpasses 40,000 with more than 11,000 temporary visa holders in Israel.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have more \u2026 people holding Australian temporary visas now than we\u2019ve ever had before. That\u2019s a feature of just a global economy and a lot of movement of people,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Labor has described the changes as closing loopholes in current immigration laws and says guard rails will be included in the new rules.<\/p>\n
The home affairs minister would have new powers to make an \u201carrival control determination\u201d only after written agreement from the prime minister and the foreign affairs minister.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, Hill said: \u201cAt any point in time, there are many temporary visa holders outside Australia holding a temporary right of entry to Australia, granted to support travel for a genuinely temporary purpose, like a holiday or attending a conference.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe current situation in the Middle East demonstrates how quickly circumstances can change that may impact whether those temporary visa holders could fulfil that temporary purpose in Australia, including whether they would leave Australia? Should they travel here?<\/p>\n
\u201cIn these circumstances, it is vital that government can respond appropriately, including by placing temporary limitations on the ability of certain cohorts and noncitizens from travelling to Australia without legislative change.\u201d<\/p>\n
The shadow foreign minister, Ted O\u2019Brien, told parliament the Coalition supported the bill in principle.<\/p>\n
Ahead of a Senate inquiry on Tuesday night, O\u2019Brien said he did not see \u201cany major hurdles\u201d to passing the new law.<\/p>\n
At a later press conference before question time, the opposition leader, Angus Taylor, praised the football players as women of \u201cgreat courage\u201d for standing up to the regime but said they were not being inconsistent by supporting the government\u2019s decision to prevent other Iranians with temporary visas from entering the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Iranian soccer players are already here and we said it\u2019s important they go through the process and be compliant,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The independent member for Clark, Andrew Wilkie, said he wanted his objection to the bill registered in Hansard.<\/p>\n
Independent MP Zali Steggall said there were insufficient safeguards in the bill.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt completely undermines our visa system and it is racist,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is clearly targeted at one group but could be abused by any subsequent government to target any other group.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Greens senator David Shoebridge said the \u201cunderlying obscenity\u201d in this issue was that Labor, the Coalition and One Nation supported the US\u2019s conflict against Iran but did not want responsibility for its refugees.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe three war parties regularly support conflict and war in Iraq, in Afghanistan and now in Iran, they cheer on the bombing, they cheer on the killing. They send Australian troops into it, and then when refugees come, as a result of it, they shut the door and act with deep cruelty,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Burke had earlier confirmed on Tuesday that five asylum applications from members of the Iranian women\u2019s football team.<\/p>\n
Burke said the visas had been granted at about 1.30am on Tuesday morning, around the time of Trump\u2019s social media posts, which first criticised, then praised, Australia.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are welcome to stay in Australia,\u201d Burke told an early morning press conference in Brisbane. \u201cThey are safe here, and they should feel at home here.<\/p>\n
\u201cI say to the other members of the team: the same opportunity is there. Australia has taken the Iranian women\u2019s soccer team into our hearts.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre\u2019s chief executive, Kon Karapanagiotidis, described the bill as \u201ctruly appalling\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Albanese government\u2019s actions today send a disturbing message about who is worthy of protection and who is not,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The Refugee Council\u2019s co-chief executive, Paul Power, said the legislation was \u201canother step towards ending access to asylum in Australia\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cInstead of building on today\u2019s positive actions, the Albanese government appears set on subverting Australian values and international law.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Labor is toughening immigration laws to stop people from some countries travelling to Australia on some temporary visas…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":531761,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-531760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531760","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=531760"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531760\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/531761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=531760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=531760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=531760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}