Failures that separated Australians from their loved ones during COVID-19 will be laid bare as the country’s “broken” visa system is investigated, Labor says.
The Senate will probe the family visa program, including potential discrimination and approval delays, after Labor backed a Greens-initiated motion on Tuesday evening. The opposition said nearly 100,000 Australians were waiting for their partners to receive visas, some of which the Home Affairs Department website estimated took around two years to approve.
COVID-19 has heavily restricted international movement, but Labor home affairs spokeswoman Kristina Keneally said “systematic mismanagement” of the system predated the pandemic.Kristina Keneally says the visa system has been marred by ‘appalling processing delays and a backlog of applications’. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage“This is a system plagued with appalling processing delays and a backlog of applications,” she said. “Scott Morrison pretends the delays are due to COVID, but we know that simply isn’t correct. This failure has been years in the making. The system is completely broken.”Applicants for the 173 and 143 parent visas wereBut many feared they would be unable to return once the visa was granted, with non-essential international travel halted because of COVID-19. The government in January suspended that obligation, which was based on a definition that did not consider parents “immediate family members”. Immigration Minister Alex Hawke said the government was “actively reviewing the settings for various visas in response to the challenges posed by COVID-19 on an ongoing basis”.Source:News Corp Australia Immigration Minister Alex Hawke says the government is ‘actively reviewing various visas … COVID-19 on an ongoing basis’. Picture: Mick Tsikas / AAP ImageIt followed a November decision to allow applicants for partner visas to remain onshore while their visas were processed. Labor MP Julian Hill, who led the charge over the parent visas, said “cruel” rules forcing loved ones overseas “with no end in sight” had taken a heavy toll on families. He claimed the inquiry would provide a chance to “shine a light” on what he described as a “Peter Dutton’s family and partner visa black hole”. “With COVID we have seen thousands of people being forced offshore to get their visa when the minister could simply change the law and approve their visa here in Australia,” he said. “This inquiry will examine the broader mess of the partner visa program, and it can’t come soon enough,” he said.
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