Australia’s “mass migration” myth: The real story is mass deportation

Australia isn’t facing mass migration — it’s enforcing mass deportations, allowing Section 501 to tear families apart. Gerry Georgatos reports.

Australia is awash with political rhetoric about “mass immigration.” Headlines, parliamentary speeches, and public commentary insist the nation is being “flooded” with arrivals. Yet the statistics do not bear this out. Immigration intake numbers fluctuate, but the dominant trend of the past decade has not been runaway growth — it has been the unprecedented expansion of deportations. Under the Migration Act 1958 and specifically its notorious section 501 provisions on “character grounds,” deportations have reached historic highs.

From the turn of the century to 2014, only around 40–60 people per year were deported; today, the figure routinely reaches into the hundreds and at times exceeds 1,000 annually. This is not immigration at all — it is exclusion, expulsion, and destruction of lives.

At the heart of this practice is a policy choice: to allow ideologues and ministers unchecked discretion to brand people – often long-term residents – as unworthy of remaining in the only home they know. These decisions are not about protecting the community from imminent danger. They are about the systematic use of “character” as a weapon, eroding the principle that punishment ends when a sentence is served.

This article examines the legislative framework, the expansion of deportations, the case law that has sought (and often failed) to constrain ministerial power, and the profound human cost. It will highlight the advocacy of myself, and in the past, Julian Burnside, David Manne, George Newhouse and Claire O’Connor and others in exposing this injustice, and argue that Australia’s deportation regime is both unlawful in spirit and inhumane in practice.

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Section 501 of the Migration Act: A legislative overview

Section 501 of the Migration Act empowers the Minister for Home Affairs (or their delegates) to refuse or cancel a visa if the holder does not pass the “character test.”

The test is notoriously broad. A person fails it if they have:

a substantial criminal record (defined to include a prison sentence of 12 months or more);
an association with a group or person suspected of criminal conduct;
or where the Minister reasonably suspects the person is not of “good character” and cancellation is deemed in the national interest.

What is extraordinary is not only the breadth of these grounds, but the fact that the Minister can personally intervene to cancel visas without affording the usual merits review. This “God power,” as critics call it, creates a zone of unfettered executive authority.

Originally, deportations under s 501 were rare. The section was framed as a safeguard for extraordinary cases. But since 2014, following legislative amendments and political focus on “tough on crime” posturing, it has been weaponised into a routine tool of banishment.

The numbers: From dozens to thousands

The contrast is stark. In 2013, deportations under s 501 numbered fewer than 60. By 2015–16, following policy hardening, deportations surged past 1,000 in a single year. Every year since has seen hundreds expelled. This is not a blip, but a structural shift. Australia is now one of the most aggressive deporting nations in the world relative to population size.

These numbers matter because they undercut the myth of “mass immigration.” Net migration figures are misleading when used in isolation. Yes, people arrive, but thousands are simultaneously being removed — many of whom have lived virtually their entire lives in Australia. Deportation is thus not the management of borders. It is the forced re-drawing of personal lives, the destruction of families, and the destabilisation of communities. Many arrive on short-stay visas, study visas, and when they conclude their stay, they return home.

Deportation as extra-judicial punishment

The legal and moral problem is profound: deportation under s501 punishes people twice.

Take a person convicted of an offence. They are tried by an Australian court, sentenced according to law, serve their time, and are released. That should be the end of the matter. The rule of law requires finality. Yet s501 allows the Minister to impose a further, indefinite penalty – banishment from the community – based on the very conviction that has already been dealt with.

This constitutes an extra-legal punishment, untethered from judicial oversight. As the Federal Court recognised in Moana v Minister for Immigration (2015), cancellation powers under s501 are administrative, not judicial. The effect is quasi-penal, undermining the separation of powers and the integrity of sentencing.

The High Court in Minister for Immigration v Nystrom (2006) upheld the validity of deporting long-term residents, but the dissenting voices warned that the practice flouted basic fairness. Critics argue that it creates a two-tier justice system: citizens who are punished once, and non-citizens who are punished twice.

The ideology of “character”

What does it mean to fail the “character test”? The definition is circular and vague. The Minister may “reasonably suspect” a person is of bad character. But suspicion is not proof, and “bad character” is not a legal offence. It is a political judgment.

The use of character grounds is particularly egregious when applied to those with minor or historical convictions. People who migrated as children, grew up in Australia, and committed offences in youth are stripped of visas despite decades of rehabilitation. This is not about risk management—it is about moral condemnation.

As I have constantly argued, the redeemer principle is at stake: the possibility of redemption is essential for a humane society. If people are forever branded as “bad character,” rehabilitation becomes meaningless. Deportation extinguishes the very possibility of return to community, of repair, of belonging.

Case law and judicial review

Courts have grappled with s 501 cases, but the jurisprudence shows the breadth of ministerial power.

In Hands v Minister for Immigration (2018), the Federal Court found the Minister had failed to properly consider the best interests of children when cancelling a visa.
In Aldous v Minister for Home Affairs (2020), the Court emphasised that decision-makers must engage with international human rights obligations.
Yet in many cases, including Falzon v Minister for Immigration (2018), the High Court upheld broad ministerial discretion.

This patchwork of authority illustrates the limits of legal challenge. While procedural fairness must be observed, the substantive power to deport remains largely intact. It is a system stacked against those facing removal.

The High Court’s decision in Love v Commonwealth (2020) introduced a small but significant limitation. In Love, the Court held that First Nations Australians, as members of political communities with deep and continuing connection to country, cannot be considered “aliens” under s 51(xix) of the Constitution. While the case did not involve deportations under s 501 directly, it highlights the boundaries of the alien's power and underscores that Parliament’s capacity to expel people is not unlimited.

More recent Federal Court challenges, such as Tesoriero v Minister for Home Affairs (2021), have tested whether ministerial discretion has been lawfully exercised. Yet, despite scattered victories, the overall trajectory has been judicial deference. The courts have shown reluctance to intrude upon the executive’s claimed prerogative to decide who belongs.

Advocacy and human resistance

Alongside the legal battles stands a history of extraordinary advocacy.

George Newhouse and Claire O’Connor were central in the defence of Cornelia Rau, a stateless German-born Australian resident wrongly detained under migration powers in 2004–05. The case became emblematic of the cruelty and dysfunction of immigration detention, sparking the Palmer and Comrie reports. Their work revealed the dangers of unchecked executive power in migration law, which continue today under s 501 deportations.

David Manne’s work has been similarly vital, particularly through the Refugee and Immigration Legal Centre (RILC), where he has defended asylum seekers against refoulement and unlawful detention. Julian Burnside KC has fought landmark refugee cases, from Tampa through to multiple High Court challenges, insisting on the centrality of human dignity and international law.

And in recent years, I have been at the forefront of resisting deportations under s501, averting removals in numerous cases. The successful advocacy in the matters of Robert Taylor and the ongoing struggle in matters with Stephen Pokrywka, both covered in ABC News, revealed how deportation tears apart long-standing Australian residents. In another case, that of Ian Orario, I won a decisive victory in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, securing protection against unjust removal. I have succeeded with 23 individuals from 25, avoiding deportation and in securing their liberty from immigration detention. These interventions underscore how individual resistance can temporarily blunt systemic brutality. Yet they also show the limits: for every victory, hundreds of deportations continue.

Human cost: Families and communities shattered

Behind every statistic is a family torn apart. Deportations often target individuals who arrived in Australia as infants or children, never formalised citizenship, and know no other country. To send them “back” is a misnomer — many have no connection to their birth country, no family there, no language skills, no cultural ties.

Communities lose fathers, mothers, siblings. Children are left behind. The trauma reverberates across generations. Deportation is not just a legal act — it is a social wound.

Advocates such as I, George Newhouse, Claire O’Connor, David Manne, and Julian Burnside have fought tirelessly to stop removals, often succeeding in isolated cases. But systemic reform is needed. Without legislative change, each victory is temporary, each reprieve fragile.

International law and human rights

Australia is a party to numerous international human rights instruments, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Article 12 guarantees the right to liberty of movement, and Article 17 protects against arbitrary interference with family life. Deportations under s 501 regularly breach these obligations.

The UN Human Rights Committee has repeatedly criticised Australia’s deportation practices. It has noted that deportations of long-term residents amount to arbitrary expulsion, especially when individuals have served their criminal sentences.

Australia’s Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture (OPCAT) obligations also intersect with deportation policy. Forced removals often involve detention in harsh conditions, raising serious questions about compliance with anti-torture norms.

Political rhetoric versus reality

The fixation on “mass immigration” is a distraction. Politicians gain mileage by stoking fear of influx, yet the reality is that deportations outstrip arrivals in significance for many communities. The narrative is one of control, toughness, and deterrence.

But at what cost? The moral panic about immigration blinds the public to the human rights crisis unfolding in plain sight. Deportations are sold as protection of the community, when in fact they fracture it.

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Toward reform: Restoring justice

What is needed is wholesale reform of s501. Options include:

Limiting the character test to serious, ongoing threats, rather than historical convictions.
Restoring judicial oversight, ensuring that deportation decisions are made in courts, not ministerial offices.
Introducing a tenure-based protection: those who have lived in Australia since childhood should not be deported under any circumstances.
Embedding international human rights standards into domestic law, ensuring that family unity and proportionality are central.

The principle of redemption must be restored. A society that denies people the chance to rebuild after mistakes is a society without compassion.

There is no mass immigration in Australia. There is mass deportation. I challenge anyone to sit down with me, face the public record and community reckoning, and we discuss the immigration numbers, disaggregate. The record will demonstrate permanent migration at levels below or as required to continue procuring Australia’s annual double trillionaire (gross domestic product) economy. However, the record on deportations is a gross disgrace. Record numbers of people – many raised here, many rehabilitated – are being expelled under a draconian interpretation of s501 of the Migration Act. This is extra-judicial punishment, contrary to the rule of law, destructive of families, and corrosive of human dignity.

The rhetoric of “bad character” disguises the truth: deportation is not about safety. It is about exclusion, othering, and political gain. The advocates who resist it – Gerry Georgatos, George Newhouse, Claire O’Connor, David Manne, Julian Burnside – illuminate a better path, one grounded in humanity, legality, and justice.

Australia must confront the truth: a just society does not cast out its most vulnerable. It redeems them.