Labor Government's 2024 challenge to restore visa integrity

After a flurry of media reporting in early October on the Albanese Government’s $160 million package to address the massive growth in asylum seekers in Australia since 2015, November 2023 data suggests little significant change in recent trends.

It may not be well into the start of 2024 that we see some impact as it will take time for both the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) and the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) to hire and train sufficient staff to implement the new strategies.

Primary asylum applications in November 2023 fell slightly to 2,196 compared to 2,322 in October 2023 (see Chart 1).

Primary asylum applications processed in November 2023 increased marginally to 1,254, still well short of the 2,500-3,000 per month that will be required. It is unlikely primary applications processed will rise significantly until well into 2024.

The total number of asylum seekers refused at primary stage increased to a new record of 76,529 and the total number of asylum seekers in Australia also set a new record of 107,912.

The five top source nations for primary asylum applications in November 2023 were Vietnam (444); China (230); Vanuatu (129); India (129) and Tonga (91).

Malaysia has fallen away to tenth with 59. DHA’s strategy to reduce unmeritorious asylum applications from Malaysia is at last starting to take effect. But the overall volume of asylum seekers from Malaysia living in the Australian community either with an application at the primary stage, the AAT or simply without a visa, will continue to number in the many 10,000s, possibly around 40,000. That is a legacy of Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s neglect from around 2015-16.

A significant development in November 2023 was a surprising rise in the portion of primary applications that were approved. This increased to just over 30%. The primary approval rate for most months since November 2019 has averaged around 10-15%.

Work cut out for Government in managing net migration

The Labor Government is still doing its best to control the visa system mess left by the Coalition, with data indicating there is still much work to do.

While there were 123 approvals of nationals from Myanmar (at an unsurprising 100% approval rate), there was a surprising increase in approvals of primary applications from China (54 at 23.4%); Malaysia (28 at 23.1%); and Tonga (6 at 11.8%). It is possible some of these approvals used the domestic violence provisions.

These approvals may have been targeted ahead of the Government’s intention to adopt a strategy of quickly processing the most recently lodged unmeritorious applications as a means of discouraging such applications.

Asylum applications at the AAT

In November 2023, there were 663 asylum applications to the AAT with 681 decisions, leading to the AAT asylum backlog falling from 41,590 to 41,572. While the marginal decline in the backlog will be welcome, the Government has allocated significant additional funds to the AAT. It will be expecting the AAT to process well over 1,500 to 2,000 cases per month. That may not take place until well into 2024.

The asylum backlog at the AAT has grown at an unprecedented rate since 2016 (see Chart 2). Once again, that has been a function of neglect starting with the period Peter Dutton was Minister and a range of attorneys-general.

Removal of unsuccessful asylum seekers

Faster processing at the primary stage and at the AAT will not be sufficient. The Government will need to also better target integrity checking at the offshore visa processing stage; better design of key visas, particularly Pacific Island visas; investigating and deregistering agents/lawyers with very large unmeritorious asylum caseloads; and removal of unsuccessful asylum seekers.

While removing a large number of unsuccessful asylum seekers who have been in Australia long-term is unlikely (given the costs and likely community connections involved), the Government will need to increase removal of asylum seekers who have lodged unmeritorious asylum applications and have been subject to early rapid processing. Without that, its $160 million package will have very limited success.

The tiny asylum removal numbers in Chart 3 have to increase very significantly.

But the very limited increase in funding for immigration compliance activity announced by the Albanese Government will mean this is unlikely. The decline in immigration compliance activity since Peter Dutton was Minister for Home Affairs simply opened up the visa system to massive exploitation. I cannot recall an immigration minister ever allowing such a major decline in immigration compliance activity.

Pressure on Government as net migration yet to peak

Arrivals and departures data for the September quarter of 2023 suggests record net migration has still not peaked.

Dr Abul Rizvi is an Independent Australia columnist and a former Deputy Secretary of the Department of Immigration. You can follow Abul on Twitter @RizviAbul.