Australia’s family visa system is “fundamentally broken” with delays, excessive costs and cruel policies unnecessarily keeping families apart, human rights lawyers say.
The Senate voted on Tuesday to set up an inquiry into the huge waiting times and broader systemic failings within the family visa program, following a push initiated by the Greens senator Nick McKim and supported by Labor.
The Human Rights Law Centre legal director, David Burke, welcomed the inquiry, telling the Guardian the system was broken and needed urgent repair.
“Through intentionally cruel policies and misadministration, the federal government is causing immense, needless suffering,” Burke said.
“Children are kept from their parents and people are separated from their partners for years on end. This inquiry will lay bare the many ways the government is currently failing families. The Morrison government can, and must, do more to allow families to be together.”
More than 200,000 people were waiting for a family visa at the end of last financial year, and some types of parent visas had waiting times of more than 30 years, Burke said. The only way to avoid the wait was to apply for another type of parent visa, which costs almost $50,000.
“It shouldn’t take years of waiting and thousands of dollars for people to be able to be with their loved ones,” he said. “For many families, exorbitant visa fees mean that a life together is simply out of reach. The right to be together as a family should never be determined by wealth.”
A spokesman for the immigration minister, Alex Hawke, said the government “disagrees with these assertions”.
The Covid-19 pandemic has put further strain on the system.
The fairness of the family and partner visa system has come under scrutiny in recent months over offshore granting requirements, which were forcing some applicants to travel abroad, stay offshore for three or more days, and then return.
The government has promised to exempt a range of categories from that requirement by Saturday and has been granting temporary time extensions to try to prevent people from going abroad.
Burke said the Covid recovery was an opportunity for the government to return to a system that “recognises the importance of family and urgently prioritise reuniting people who are separated from loved ones”.
“A fairer family migration system can play a crucial role in our recovery as Australia begins to reconnect with the rest of the world,” he said.
