“It remains impossible to reach Australia by boat and then seek asylum here,” says Daniel Ghezelbash, deputy director of UNSW Sydney’s Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law. “Anyone attempting to do so is turned back to their country of departure or sent to Nauru. That policy is entirely unchanged.”
The visa change, he says, allowed a limited cohort of people who had arrived in Australia more than 10 years ago, who had been found to be genuine refugees but were “stuck on a cycle of short-term protection visas, year after year”, to apply for a permanent protection visa.
“Those people had been living in Australia since before Operation Sovereign Borders went into effect. For anyone who arrived after January 1, 2014 – or who arrives now – the TPV policy change is entirely irrelevant,” says Ghezelbash. “It does not apply.”
No, Peter, there is not a flotilla of boats coming. By Mike Seccombe, The Saturday Paper.