Refugees and asylum seekers
Tim READ (Brunswick) (12:56): Imagine being 19 years old and you have got a good VCE score but you are not allowed to go to uni or to get a job. On the Friday before last I spoke at the refugee encampment outside the Department of Home Affairs in Docklands to an understandably frustrated group of refugees who fled repressive regimes and violence in places like Sri Lanka and Iran and came here by boat around 12 years ago. They have been left in limbo on bridging visas, often without rights to study or work or to access Medicare. Thousands of people seeking asylum had their claims rejected under a flawed system created by the federal Liberal government, but having abolished the system, federal Labor are still not giving them a chance. I met a young woman earlier this year trapped in this system, her life on hold indefinitely because of the cruel and arbitrary requirements attached to her visa. Imagine being stuck in this system, designed by Kafka and run by the Australian government, for 12 years. These people have suffered needlessly and for far too long. Federal Labor must grant them permanent visas immediately.