“I didn’t think anything could be worse than the five long years on Nauru, but honestly, the life in Australia where we have no hope of a future is killing us, slowly,” a refugee mother tells JOHN MINNS… 

THIS time last year, Sahar Ghasemi was a happy young woman. Like thousands of others around Australia she was starting university. 

She had won a scholarship to pay her fees for an arts/law degree. Seven weeks into her first semester, she turned 18. Then she was disenrolled – her visa doesn’t allow her to study in Australia after that age. 

Sahar is a refugee from Iran. She came to Australia by boat as a small child with her parents. 

The Australian government kept them detained on the tiny island of Nauru for five years. One of three children, her brother was born there. The family suffered terribly and were eventually brought to Australia on medical grounds. The two daughters had become suicidal.

While the Albanese government has announced that 19,000 refugees on temporary visas will be allowed to apply for permanency, Sahar is one of about 12,000 in Australia who have been excluded from this decision. Many of these people have not seen their children, parents or spouses in at least 10 years. From places such as Iran, Afghanistan and Myanmar, they clearly cannot go back. But Australia still refuses to accept them.

Sahar’s mother, Zahra, told me: “I didn’t think anything could be worse than the five long years on Nauru, but honestly, the life in Australia where we have no hope of a future is killing us, slowly. 

“My little girls had five years of torture in the detention camps, now one of my daughters, despite having a scholarship, has been told she has no right to study. As a mother, I despair for them, but as a mother, I must keep fighting for our human rights.”

A few months ago, Zahra and Sahar met with the independent senator for the ACT, David Pocock, who then asked questions in parliament about her and others in her situation. 

The response from Murray Watt – representing the Minister for Immigration in the Senate – was that Labor had inherited a backlog of cases that would take time to clear. 

The answer was disingenuous to say the least. In fact, Labor’s current policy is that they will never be able to live here normally. It is applied to those, like this family, who came by boat after July 19, 2013 and were sent to Manus or Nauru. That was when Kevin Rudd made his announcement that those who arrived from that date would never be able to settle in Australia. It remains the government’s position. 

A letter sent to people in this situation last September and October from the Department of Home Affairs made it clear that the right to apply for permanent visas definitely did not apply to them.

Zahra and Sahar are part of what the department calls the “transitory persons” group – about 1200 people who arrived after Rudd’s declaration and who then had to endure detention camps on Manus Island or Nauru. 

Another 9000 people who arrived earlier have failed the so-called “fast-track” procedure for determining refugee status. It is not fast; an additional 2000 people are still waiting for resolution of their status years after applying. Nor is it a fair “track” to refugee status. Introduced by the Coalition in 2014, it immediately led to a massive reduction in successful applications. It involves a 60-page form in English. Just five pages of additional documentation are allowed. 

The Coalition removed the right to legal help in filling it out. There is only one interview with the applicant – often by phone and sometimes for as little as 15 minutes. Furthermore, with “fast track”, the appeals process to challenge negative outcomes was changed so that the appeals body does not re-interview the applicant or consider new information not provided in the first application. Successful appeals plummeted. “Fast track” did what it was clearly designed to do – exclude people from refugee status.

The Labor Party has recognised that “fast track” is unfair and should be abolished. The platform adopted at its 2021 Federal Conference says so. Yet, in government, it continues to refuse justice to those who have fallen foul of it.

So, adding these categories – those who have failed “fast track”, those who are still waiting for a determination, and those who arrived after July, 2013 – there are over 12,000 people still in the “limbo” that Zahra described after 10 years or more. 

How can her family go back to Iran? They would certainly be imprisoned on arrival. 

Senator Pocock and Zahra will speak at the annual Palm Sunday rally for refugees on April 2 in Canberra. The rally will demand that this limbo be ended and that permanent visas be issued to Zahra and the thousands like her who Australian policy has deliberately failed.

John Minns is emeritus professor of Politics and International Relations at the ANU and a member of the Refugee Action Campaign in Canberra.