Category: Featured Articles

Australian immigration law: changes and prospects in 2019

In this article, I will highlight the new visa changes in relation to the new sponsorship framework for family visas and the impact of longer processing times and delay on family sponsored visa category. The article will conclude that these changes are part of a broader ‘neoliberal’ agenda of the Australian government that focuses more on securitisation and border control rather than on the well-being of migrants and their families here and abroad.

New sponsorship framework

The Migration Amendment (Family Violence and Other Measures) Act 2018 has now been passed in the Australian parliament to provide extra requirements for people seeking to sponsor family members under family sponsored visas.

The main feature of this new framework is that it creates a two-stage application procedure, which requires first the assessment of the sponsorship, and once the sponsorship is approved, then the visa application can be lodged.

This is a very tough rule which means that the lodgement of the visa application may be delayed until a family sponsorship application is approved. For instance, if your student visa or tourist visa is expiring in a month or two, you cannot lodge an onshore partner visa application because you must wait for the approval of the sponsorship, which could take a few months to process given that, nowadays, it is taking a long time to process a partner visa application (see the second major changes below).

This new framework also shows a significant departure from any past and present sponsorship regime, such as those for the Temporary Skill Shortage (TSS) visa and Employer Nomination Scheme (ENS) visa, where sponsorship application and visa application can be lodged at the same time.

One of the primary objectives of the new sponsorship framework is to extend the government’s power to scrutinise sponsors with a violent criminal history, particularly those who have a history of family violence.

This new framework would also extend to a new temporary sponsored parent visa that will allow parents of migrants to stay in Australia for a period of up to five years.

Under this new parent visa, the applicant can ask for a three-year visa for a fee of $5,000 or a five-year visa for $10,000—a very expensive lodgement fee which many migrants may not be able to afford.

Sponsors of this parent visa would have to ensure that their parents have health insurance and do not incur any healthcare costs to Australian taxpayers. This would certainly put a heavy burden and discouragement to sponsors as ‘legally-bound’ financial guarantors.

Longer processing times and delay

The above change on sponsorship requirement has a profound impact on processing times and waiting period for applicants who applied under family sponsored visas.

As a result of this two-stage process of sponsorship and visa application, it means that there would be more waiting time for partner visa application because both applicants and sponsors will have to go through a rigorous process of internal checking regarding their identity, character, travel history, employment and so on.

Yet, even before these new changes were introduced, partner visas were already taking nearly 18 months to process for offshore applications and up to 25 months (nearly two years) for onshore applications.

One of the main reasons for this long processing period has been the result of the government’s cut in the migration intake. According to the government’s report, Australia’s annual permanent migration intake in 2017-2018 has been reduced to 162,417, which is well below the 190,000 places planned in the budget.

The previous Minister for Immigration Peter Dutton argues that this cut to the migration intake is indeed necessary to weed-out “applications lodged by individuals with complex immigration histories, including extensive travel histories, unsuccessful visa applications and/or periods of being unlawful in Australia”.

This entails increased scrutiny that includes more character and bona fides checks, which would further result into more delays and longer processing times.

The other major reason is related to the present culture of ‘securitisation’ and ‘border control’ which impacts on the way resources and budget are allocated within the Department of Immigration, which has now become part of the ‘super-ministry’ Department of Home Affairs that combines various government agencies including immigration and citizenship, customs and border control, national security and counter-terrorism and multicultural affairs.

It is apparent that outsourcing of public service and prioritisation of resources to border security and terrorism (rather than the visa processing) is the main goal of the current Australian government. It is revealed that “more than 250 public servants at the Department of Immigration and Border Protection face sack as the department moves to outsource its key call centres to a private operator”.

Home Affairs Secretary Michael Pezzulo told the Senate committee that the Department’s stance on border protection is of paramount importance, saying that even if more staff and funding becomes available it will most likely not be used to improve visa processing times.

It is worrying to see that administrative measures such as these are being used to slow the processing of visa applications for political reasons.

Conclusion

To conclude, it appears that these changes are nothing new but the continuation of the government’s cling to neoliberal strategy of ‘economic rationalisation’ on Australia’s migration program.

We are witnessing a complete overhaul of the migration policy that select migrants who are young, skilled, mobile, with excellent English language, and are able to quickly contribute to the Australian economy.

In the government’s point of view, migrants who do not fit within this ‘ideal’ model is therefore undeserving and unworthy to become a member of Australian society. Indeed, Australian permanent residency and Australian citizenship come with a high price.

Despite all these changes, migration to Australia will continue. But what we need is a new perspective that puts human being (the migrant) at the centre of the discussion, rather than the state’s focus on profit-making, criminalisation of migrant community and border control.

References:

Button, James, ‘Dutton’s Dark Victory’, The Monthly (February 2018)

Department of Home Affairs, Annual Report 2017-2018 (May 2017)

Mares, Peter, ‘Migration by numbers’, Inside Story (5 November 2018)

Towell, Noel, ‘Hundreds of public servants face sack as Immigration outsources visa centres’, The Sydney Morning Herald (16 May 2017)

*This article first appeared in Batingaw (Issue 40, Jan-Feb 2019), Migrante Australia’s Newsletter, in a slightly different version.

Irresponsible Australian mining in the Philippines persists

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The open-pit mines of OceanaGold in Nueva Vizcaya. The military has accused anti-mining groups opposing the open-pit mining operations as fronts of communist rebels. (Photo credit to Amianan Salakniban)

In 2008, I met Manoy Tony, an elder from the island of Rapu-Rapu in Bicol region, and Frances Quimpo, from the Centre for Environmental Concerns in the Philippines (CEC), in a public forum held in Melbourne about large-scale mining activities in the Philippines.

In the forum, they pointed out how huge mining companies like the Lafayette Philippines Inc, a subsidiary of an Australian mining company, have substantially destroyed the environment and community’s livelihood as a result of cyanide spills, pollution and depletion of water resources.

In fact, Lafayette’s two mine spills in Rapu-Rapu that happened in 2005 was amongst “the worst mining disasters in the Philippines”. Recent report shows that rehabilitation work on the mine site and surrounding coastal communities in Albay and Sorsogon has been very slow and the cost of rehabilitation has now ballooned to P310 million (‘Slow progress in Rapu-Rapu mine rehabilitation’, Rappler, 08 May 2018).

OceanaGold in the spotlight

Today, the issue of negative impact of large-scale mining in the Philippines continues. Another Australian-Canadian mining giant, OceanaGold, is the subject of a major research study done by the Institute of Policy Studies and Mining Watch Canada in relation to the company’s dangerous and irresponsible mining activities in Didipio, Nueva Vizcaya.

The report is based on a number of years of study and site visits on numerous fact-finding missions in the country since 2013. It found that OceanGold has violated several national and provincial laws and decrees and concluded that the mine “has significant negative impacts on water, forests, land, indigenous peoples, human rights, biodiversity, and workers’ rights” (Robin Broad et al, OceanaGold in the Philippines: Ten Violations that Should Prompt Its Removal, 31 October 2018).

As a result, the study recommends that the Philippine government should refuse OceanaGold’s renewal of its licence after June 2019 as well as requests by the company for new exploration permits.

The OceanaGold’s Didipio Gold and Copper Mine Project in the Northern Luzon province of Nueva Vizcaya is indeed one of the manifestations of the country’s utterly flawed, anti-people policy on mining. It shows the ‘dark side’ of mining liberalisation on the Philippine economy, particularly the violation of the country’s sovereignty and national patrimony.

Many people are led to believe that foreign investment is good for the country because it generates income, economic development and local employment for the poor people in the communities.

But this view is deeply flawed and short-sighted. How can a responsible mining industry contribute to the national development of a country whereby people’s lives and natural habitat of the local community are being disregarded?

The Philippines ranks amongst the world’s mineral-rich countries when it comes to gold, copper, nickel and chromite. But the country’s mineral resources only benefit large foreign companies and not the Filipinos who can use these resources to develop its national industrialisation (IBON, ‘PH minerals benefit foreigners not Filipinos’, 14 Mar 2017).

Since the passage of the Mining Act of 1995, the Philippine government has been actively pursuing the implementation of a neoliberal program for the mining industry, under which twenty-five percent of the country’s land area becomes potentially devoted to mining (section 5 of the Act).

Huge incentives are given to mining firms by way of tax-free operations for the first five years and the relaxation of mining permit applications and the implementation of environmental regulations, assessment and its impact.

Human rights violations and Australian involvement

The more disturbing issue, however, is the ever-increasing human rights violations and extrajudicial killings of human rights activists who advocate for ordinary people and local communities opposed to large-scale mining operations.

Several studies reveal that human rights violations against anti-mining activists and environmental advocates are in fact perpetrated by the Philippine military and its security forces (Aytin 2016; Holden, Nadeu and Jacobson, 2011).

It is no coincidence that mining-related political killings have intensified since the creation of Investment Defense Force (IDF) to silence any opposition to mining.

Here, it is worth noting Australia’s continuous military and intelligence support to the Philippine military in the wake of the Marawi crisis. In the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) website, it states that the Australian Defence Force (ADF) provided surveillance support and counter-terrorism specific training to the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

Specifically, it reveals that “approximately 100 AFP, PCG, and DND personnel undertake education and training in Australia each year, while several hundred participate in training provided through MTT [ADF Mobile Training Team] visits to the Philippines” (DFAT, ‘Philippines country brief’).

Given the continuing escalation of armed insurgencies in the Philippines under the Duterte regime, it remains to be seen whether Australia’s military support of “advising, assisting, and training” to its Philippine counterparts would certainly materialise in a more direct involvement of Australian military personnel on the ground.

Political killings continue

Since Duterte came to power in 2016, “there have been 30 extrajudicial killings related to mining; 12 of the victims are indigenous people” (Paul Christian Yand-Ed, ‘Mining in the Philippines: The steep price our people pay to line the pockets of a few’, Bulatlat, 23 October 2018).

Sister Patricia Fox, the 71-year-old Australian nun, who has been recently deported by President Duterte on the 3rd of November, urged the Australian government to take more pressure on the President over human rights issue.

She strongly called for the Australian government to investigate the mining activities of Australian companies whose project are displacing indigenous communities.

“They should start looking at Australian companies, particularly mining companies, because they’re hiring goons and … you know we have to start being responsible for what’s happening over there”, she said (‘Australian nun Patricia Fox lands in Melbourne after being deported from the Philippines’, ABC News, 4 November 2018).

People like Sister Pat (as she is fondly called) is relentlessly fighting for the rights and welfare of poor people in the Philippines in the hope of preserving the country’s environment and its natural resources for future generations to come.

It is of great importance that this issue is raised in the Australian public and expose what Australian mining companies are doing to the local communities in the Philippines.

The Australian people can help so much by raising this issue in the wider Australian community to stop the aggressive and irresponsible mining activities as well as the worsening human rights violations in the country.

References:

‘Australian nun Patricia Fox lands in Melbourne after being deported from the Philippines’, ABC News, 4 November 2018

Aytin, Andrew, ‘A Social Movements’ Perspective on Human Rights Impact of Mining Liberalization in the Philippines’ (2016) 25(4) New Solutions: A Journal of Environmental and Occupational Health Policy 535-558

Broad, Robin, et al, OceanaGold in the Philippines: Ten Violations that Should Prompt Its Removal, 31 October 2018

DFAT, ‘Philippines country brief’

Holden, William, Nadeu, Kathleen and Jacobson, R. Daniel, ‘Exemplifying Accumulation by Dispossession: Mining and Indigenous Peoples in the Philippines’ (2011) Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography 141-161

IBON, ‘PH minerals benefit foreigners not Filipinos’, 14 Mar 2017

Paul Christian Yand-Ed, ‘Mining in the Philippines: The steep price our people pay to line the pockets of a few’, Bulatlat, 23 October 2018

‘Slow progress in Rapu-Rapu mine rehabilitation’, Rappler, 08 May 2018.

*This article was first published in Bulatlat.com at: https://www.bulatlat.com/2018/11/10/irresponsible-australian-mining-in-the-philippines-persists/