Proposed new powers for home affairs minister are ‘truly appalling’, Asylum Seeker Resource Centre says

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Labor is toughening immigration laws to stop people from some countries travelling to Australia on some temporary visas and seeking to stay permanently because of the Middle East war.

The assistant citizenship minister, Julian Hill, introduced urgent amendments on Tuesday, hours after home affairs minister, Tony Burke, facilitated asylum applications from members of the Iranian women’s football team.

Under the proposal, Burke could issue an “arrival control determination” to prevent temporary visa holders from certain regions visiting Australia where global circumstances change in order to “protect the integrity and sustainability of Australia’s immigration system”.

The law, if passed, could be used to prevent Iranian tourists from travelling to Australia if their visa was issued before the US and Israel attacked Tehran, and where there is a concern they might overstay their visa or apply for protection while in Australia.

The bill itself does not specifically name a country, but a briefing document circulated to MPs and senators, and seen by Guardian Australia, references the situation in the Middle East.

“The current situation in the Middle East demonstrates how quickly the circumstances can change for visa applicants and for those non-citizens who already hold a temporary visa but have not yet travelled to Australia, and for whom a visa application now, would likely be unsuccessful,” the briefing note said.

In a snap hearing on Tuesday evening, the home affairs department admitted it had only began drafting the proposed changes on Friday.

The department’s immigration head, Clare Sharp, revealed there were about 7,200 Iranians with temporary visas for Australia. Across the region, the figure surpasses 40,000 with more than 11,000 temporary visa holders in Israel.

“We have more … people holding Australian temporary visas now than we’ve ever had before. That’s a feature of just a global economy and a lot of movement of people,” she said.

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