Two month ago, former High Court justice, Ian Callinan, warned that Australia’s Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) was being overloaded with bogus asylum seeker applications from migrants attempting to scam Australia’s visa system:
[Former High Court justice Ian Callinan] said “almost everyone” with migration law experience had told him there were applicants and representatives who “game the system, well knowing there is an automatic entitlement to a bridging visa”…
The AAT now handles about 59,000 lodgements a year: more than half (52 per cent) are migration and refugee cases… The AAT’s caseload of migration and refugee matters doubled in the two years to June 30 last year…
It was also revealed that Malaysians were behind much of this rorting, often assisted by dodgy migration agents:
The Malaysian government this week acknowledged Malaysians seeking to earn money in Australia were scamming the country’s protection visa system by the thousands each year…
Malaysian Deputy Foreign Minister Marzuki Yahya told parliament there were few disincentives for workers to try their luck because it was so cheap to apply for a protection visa.
The worst that could happen was they would be sent home at Australia’s expense…
Nazuan Apis left Malaysia in late 2016 for Australia on a three-month online tourist visa, knowing he would likely overstay his welcome to earn money doing seasonal farm work.
But it was only after meeting a Malaysian work agent while working in a vineyard in Robinvale, Mildura, that he decided to apply for a protection visa in a bid to extend his work stay.
“He told me that if I wanted to stay in Australia I should apply for a protection visa. He said he could arrange it all for me for $100″…
Fifteen of his Malaysian housemates in Mildura, mostly farm workers who had also overstayed their visas, also applied for protection through the same agent…
Yesterday, The ABC revealed that 33,000 Malaysians have taken advantage of Australia’s visa system loopholes to lodge bogus claims for asylum over recent years:
In an interview with The Malaysian Reserve newspaper last week, High Commissioner Andrew Goledzinowski said 33,000 Malaysians had applied for asylum in Australia in recent years, most of whom were thought not to be genuine refugees.
“Many who overstay then apply for refugee status. At the moment, we have 33,000 Malaysian citizens — not Syrians, not Rohingyas — who have applied as a refugee in Australia,” Mr Goledzinowski was quoted as saying.
“They are doing it because they know we are a generous country.”
“We take refugees seriously and they are trying to delay the time to be removed [from Australia],” he added.
More than 10,000 Malaysian nationals are estimated to be in Australia unlawfully — a significantly higher number than people from any other country…
“From the information we have, the large number [applying for asylum] is due to the fact that Malaysians are taking advantage of Australia’s immigration laws to enable them to stay longer in an unlawful manner,” said a statement from Malaysia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, issued in response to Mr Goledzinowski’s interview…
“Everybody [in Malaysia] has got this idea that it’s so easy to get asylum in Australia,” [James Chin, director of the Asia Institute Tasmania] said.
Part of the problem lies in the fact that Malaysians are one of the few nationalities (alongside citizens of the US, Canada, Japan and Singapore) that have been granted easy access to Australia through our Electronic Travel Authority (ETA) system. This allows them to apply for short-term travel to Australia for only $20, without needing to attend an embassy or high commission.
Accordingly, the pathway has been left wide open for Malaysians to travel to Australia and then apply for asylum, knowing full well that it would take years for their claim to be assessed by the AAT, thus extending their stay and allowing them to work illegally.
Indeed, according to the ABC report above, 59% of applications for protection visas lodged in Australia in 2016-17 came from Malaysian and Chinese citizens, with only 2% of these deemed credible and granted asylum.
The systemic scamming by Malaysians helps to explain why bridging visas – usually granted to those awaiting claims for permanent residency – have more than doubled over the past five years:
Given the immense scale of this problem, the obvious solution is to suspend Malaysian’s access to the ETA system and close the migration rort pathway.
