A bill that would increase the risk threshold for asylum seekers claiming refugee status, and lead to their claims being automatically rejected if they did not produce the correct documentation, faces defeat after failing to secure the support of key crossbenchers.
The migration amendment (protection and other measures) bill seeks to give the refugee review tribunal greater powers to reject asylum seekers’ claims for refugee status, including if they have false or incorrect identification documents.
The bill would increase the risk threshold for complementary protection, which extends Australia’s protection obligations beyond the framework put forward by the UN. Complementary protection offers refuge to people who are at risk of harm or persecution but who don’t necessarily fall within the confines of the UN definition of refugees. For example, women at risk of “honour” killings or genital mutilation could be covered under Australia’s system of complementary protection.
The bill would seek to increase the threshold from likely to probable, meaning asylum seekers have to prove a more than 50% chance of harm or persecution if they returned to their home countries.
The Greens oppose the bill outright, whereas Labor and a number of crossbenchers are seeking to make amendments, including scrapping the increase in the risk threshold, which is schedule two of the bill.
“While schedule two remains … Labor can not support this bill,” the shadow higher education minister, Kim Carr, told the Senate on Monday. “Labor has grave concerns about the bill’s significant changes to the way Australia determines whether it has an obligation to protect non-citizens.”
He went on: “Labor puts the government on notice as we did before. We will not support your attempts to walk away from Australia’s international protection obligations and place the lives of the vulnerable at risk.”
The Motoring Enthusiast party senator, Ricky Muir, who holds one of the eight vital crossbench votes, supports Labor’s amendments. “I cannot, in all good conscience, support a change that raises a real prospect of sending children and families … to persecution or other forms of life threatening harm,” he told the Senate on Monday. “Is this increased chance something I want rested on my shoulders?”
He also opposed the granting of greater powers to the refugee review tribunal without legal recourse for asylum seekers.
“I have concerns that due to the removal of legal assistance and the shifting of the refugee status determination process from an inquisitorial process to an adversarial one, there’s a real chance that genuine refugees will be sent back to their home countries where they face persecution or harm,” Muir said.
His fellow crossbencher Nick Xenophon also raised “serious concerns” about schedule two of the bill, which he said “simply goes too far”. He said he could not support the bill while schedule two remained in it.
The newly independent senator Glenn Lazarus will put forward his own amendments to the bill. His office has told Guardian Australia that he rejects the bill in its current form because of its “risk to life” and failure to meet Australia’s international obligations.
The independent senator Jacqui Lambie, who is recovering in a Tasmanian hospital after minor surgery, also opposes the legislation. She has requested a pair from the government whips so her vote will be counted.
The Liberal Democrat senator, David Leyonhjelm, and Family First’s Bob Day support the bill.
The Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young said the bill would “undoubtedly put lives at risk”. “The bill seriously compromises the integrity of Australia’s rigorous protection determination system, erodes procedural safeguards and it hands unprecedented power to the minister of the day,” she said.
A Coalition backbencher, Cory Bernardi, has slammed the Greens as “sanctimonious and pious”, arguing that Australia will always “comply with our international human rights obligations”.
He said increased border-protection powers were necessary to stop people smugglers from “smuggling jihadis” out of Australia to fight overseas. “They don’t care who is on the boats,” Bernardi said of the Greens.
Guardian Australia has sought comment from the government on whether it will consider Labor’s amendments to the bill.
