Australian parliament approves changes to immigration laws Friday Dec 05,2014

Australia's conservative government on Friday Dec 05,2014 further tightened immigration laws, introducing controversial temporary visas for refugees which do not grant permanent settlement in the country.

The amendments to the Migration Act narrowly passed the lower house Friday morning after a stormy late-night debate in the upper house Senate

The Australian parliament has approved changes to immigration laws that include reintroducing controversial temporary visas for refugees.

The bill will allow refugees to live and work in Australia for three to five years, but denies them permanent protection.
It was passed by 34 votes to 32 in the senate and later backed by MPs.

Australia currently detains all asylum seekers who arrive by boat, holding them in offshore processing camps.

It says that those found to be refugees will not be permanently resettled in Australia, under tough new policies aimed at ending the flow of boats.

It also has a backlog of cases - about 30,000 - relating to asylum seekers who arrived before the current policies were put in place. Those people live in detention camps or in the community under bridging visas that do not allow them to work.

To secure enough support in parliament to pass the bill, the government made concessions. Children will be freed from detention on Christmas Island, an offshore camp where conditions have been strongly criticised.

The number of confirmed refugees Australia will agree to accommodate will rise by 7,500, from the current level of 13,750, by 2018 (reversing an earlier cut). Asylum seekers on bridging visas will be allowed to work while their claims for refugee status are processed.

The bill was narrowly approved in the senate after intense debate in a late-night sitting. It was then passed into law by the House of Representatives, where the government has a majority.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott described the move as "a win for Australia".

Australia and Asylum

• Asylum seekers - mainly from Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Iraq and Iran - travel to Australia's Christmas Island by boat from Indonesia
• The number of boats rose sharply in 2012 and early 2013. Scores of people have died making the journey
• To stop the influx, the government has adopted hard-line measures intended as a deterrent
• Everyone who arrives is detained. Under a new policy, they are processed in Nauru and Papua New Guinea. Those found to be refugees will be resettled in PNG, Nauru or Cambodia
• Tony Abbot's government has also adopted a policy of tow-backs, or turning boats around
• Rights groups and the UN have voiced serious concerns about the policies and conditions in the detention camps. They accuse Australia of shirking international obligations.