The visa system is inherently complex and migration lawyers and agents are 'critical intermediaries' between consumers and the system.
Immigration Law
Law Council of Australia Conference Brisbane - 20 March 2026
Thank you for the honour of being with you today. And also last night. Seeing many people I know, or correspond with. And also being present for Professor Mary Crock's award presentation and remarkable speech. We had a long chat afterwards and I think I have a girl crush. Michael the comedian was also a pisser – more of him please!
I have a few things to share, but at the outset, just to clear the air between me and the legal profession, I confess that I was a really terrible law student. Like really bad. I spent most of my time on social and political activities. I got expelled from tutorials one year for chatting too much and answering any and all questions with a solemn declaration that while I wasn't sure of the answer, I would be sure to consult a lawyer. I only ever read one case in full – they were very long.
Probably my finest legal moment at University thereafter was winning an argument with the faculty that I did not have to attend tutorials and was free to work full time, as I read the degree rules and proved to them the worst they could do is deduct 15% from my mark for refusing to turn up to tutes. A win-win.
Property Law actually inspired me to finish the degree, as I concluded literally nothing they could throw at me could possibly be worse. I was deeply grateful to the wonderful Joycey Tooher, who wrote the textbook, for my worst ever mark of 50%. Mainly I think I got that much as she didn't want me back in her class next semester. A mutual feeling.
Peak irony I suppose that my long-term partner is a lawyer and now Barrister, and also President of the Victorian Society of Labor Lawyers which has worked for over 50 years to advocate for law reform to advance social justice. At work and at home, I get the law, the law, the law, it's everywhere.
Having got that out the way, a big thank you to the Law Council members and staff for your contribution to the work of the Parliament which I've long respected. As an old-fashioned public policy nerd, before being appointed to the Ministry, I was deeply engaged in Parliamentary Committee work. Inquiries are hostage to submissions which are of highly variable quality, to say the least.
So, I was always relieved when I saw the Law Council had chosen to submit - well researched, argued and greatly appreciated. And with a glorious lack of insane levels of CAPITALISATION, bolding and underLINING.
I thought I'd share a few reflections on the current context for our work in the migration and home affairs ministries led by Minister Tony Burke. He who enjoys the privilege of being the most sued person in the country, in the most litigated portfolio in the land. That keeps many of you in business.
Migration is endlessly fascinating, and for millions of globally connected Australians, a properly functioning visa system is critical infrastructure. Core to the patterns of everyday life and the national economy: family reunion; special or emergency visits; trade; and business and skills; or helping loved ones fleeing persecution and violence.
As an open, trading, multicultural nation, an orderly, fair migration system is not an optional extra – it's as important as any other major government function whether the ATO, Medicare, NDIS or the NBN.
The visa system though is inherently complex and, if you'll forgive me the market terminology, migration lawyers and agents are 'critical intermediaries' between consumers and the system.
The advice you give and people's resulting choices, are literally life changing and I thank you for it – even when in my current role I'm on the receiving end. Many of you, as I do, try to help people whose lives have been profoundly damaged by bad migration advice, before they landed on our doorsteps.
Indeed, listening to and talking with people last night I felt at home, as the majority of work of my local electorate office in south-east Melbourne relates to migration and visa matters, often in vulnerable situations.
Permit me a moment of catharsis then to note, as I did last year to the migration agents at their conference, notwithstanding my high regard for your work, a few irritations I see in my electorate work.
- Firstly, sometimes it's kinder to be direct and honest – if cases are hopeless then advisers and advocates should be upfront and tell clients not to waste their money. To be very direct, the Code for migration agents them to do this, but not lawyers who too often I see from my electorate work take a lot of money for obviously hopeless cases.
- Secondly, and related, I have a particular irritation when I see lawyers taking money for humanitarian or protection cases that clearly have no prospects of success. Some of the advocacy I see borders on unconscionable conduct conduct – we all know given the overwhelming demand on the program someone's uncle or cousin or friend is unfortunately never going to get a visa. While I can finger wave and ask you not to do it, and understand the enormous pressure on family members who feel the need to try everything, I invite you to reflect on whether such conduct is ethical, and whether professional codes need to be adjusted in relation to migration law and hopeless cases.
- Finally, too many lawyers tell their clients that somehow an MP can help if only we would write a letter or wave a non-existent magic wand. Please don't mislead people. MPs letters do NOT change a case's priority, and it is impossible and unreasonable to expect MPs to write letters on routine visa applications.
What I really wanted to do today though is share some context. In terms of migration law and policy reform, the work is never done. It's a dynamic environment. In part because courts establish new precedents, requiring legislative responses. And in part because social and economic changes and global events force adaption of the migration system.
While urgent bills will still arise, as happened last week with respect to temporary visa holders offshore when major events occur, Minister Burke is striving to normalise the concept of 'Migration Legislation Amendment Bills'. There have long been regular 'Treasury Laws Amendment Bills' that deal with myriad bits and pieces, and a similar rhythm of Migration Amendment bills is sensible.
In terms of the substance of reform though, we govern in fractious times, and face difficult choices in responding to fragile, fraying social cohesion while staying true to our liberal democratic traditions.
Hate and extremism are on the rise, in much of the world, including Western liberal democracies, and Australia is not immune.
There are deep, powerful forces tugging at the threads of the beautiful tapestry that is modern Australian society. I addressed these in a speech earlier this month to the McKell Institute, so just to précis here.
The ubiquity of the internet, of digital and social media, make it increasingly possible to live in Australia yet exist in bubbles. Connected 24/7 with an ancestral country, receiving foreign information in first languages. Polarisation fuelled by algorithms and social media echo chambers is well documented.
Growing inequality, identity politics and targeted malign influence by authoritarian state actors stress things further. As do overseas political influences, including extremist ideologies and authoritarian politics in parts of Europe and the Americas (including the recently internationalised CPAC) and other regions (including Islamist extremism) have spillover effects into our society.
Weaponising difference though, whether race, religious or other aspects of identity, is especially dangerous in Australia. As Yascha Mounk sets out in his 2022 book The Great Experiment: Why Diverse Democracies Fall Apart and How They Can Endure, super diverse, multicultural liberal democracies are rare, and relatively new in history.
Most multicultural societies were autocratic (think empires of old), and most democracies were monocultural, so in a sense we are a recent experiment in how to make a remarkably diverse democracy work.
And we have absolutely made it work. Our human diversity is modern Australia's defining characteristic and surely our greatest strength.
But Australia cannot ever take our success for granted. Simply put social cohesion is how we live well together. How we treat one another, how we debate our differences, how we share a sense of fairness even when we disagree, how we preserve what we've built.
The real issue is not whether Australia will remain diverse, as it will. The actual question is whether Australia will remain successful, stable and prosperous, or whether polarisation and failures in social cohesion will see more division, undermining our security, productivity and prosperity.
It's within this context that current debates over both migration, and also the legal frameworks necessary to ensure social cohesion and combat hate and extremism, sit.
Since coming to office, the Government has twice strengthened laws in relation to hate speech. The Parliament ultimately would not support proposals for serious vilification provisions. These are not easy issues in our liberal democratic tradition, where the default approach is to combat odious speech with more speech. But the circumstances we face and growing extremism will mean ongoing debate about where the limits of incitement and hate speech should be.
The latest new laws were used for the first time with the decision to list Hizb ut-Tahrir as a prohibited hate group under the Criminal Code. As I made that recommendation to the Governor-General please understand I will refrain from specific comment or responding to questions, so as not to prejudice any questions that may come before the Courts.
On migration, of course, argument over the scale and focus of the program is entirely legitimate. There are genuine community anxieties, though Australia does NOT suffer from 'mass-migration' – we have tightly controlled borders, not the uncontrolled movement of people seen in many parts of the world.
As you know, the Government inherited a shocking mess from the previous Government. The system was broken, with basically no coherent migration policy, and thousands of staff cut from Home Affairs which had become a black hole for stalled applications. Multiple independent reviews showed shocking misuse of the visa system by criminal syndicates with little or no enforcement.
We have taken tough decisions to turn things around. Our Government has implemented most of the reforms in the 2023 Migration Strategy. Net overseas migration has now fallen rapidly, by over 45% from its peak.
Yet diversity and migration are still being weaponised in similar ways as overseas.
The next period of politics on the right and centre right will not be pretty, as the Liberals and Nationals descend to an ugly three way with One Nation. In my view they made a major strategic error some time ago, in trying to out Pauline Pauline. As Labor learnt from the Greens political party years ago, it doesn't work so don't try.
It's not a great environment for rational debate or policy making, as the incentives for the Opposition and the other fringe parties are all to stoke division in their fight on the right.
They're quick to demand massive cuts to migration and weaponise race and diversity, but they never say what or where they would cut. Specifically, which skilled workers? Which family reunion streams will go? Which parts of the economy would they cripple first? Which rural areas will be told 'no more GPs or nursing homes for you'? There's nothing resembling a policy so far, just vibes and thought bubbles.
Nevertheless, the Government is not standing still waiting for the Opposition to get their act together, and reform of course continues.
One issue I've been consulting on this week relates to Australia's humanitarian program which is overwhelmed with impossible levels of global demand that Australia cannot meet. Even with the Government's decision to increase capacity for four years to 20,000 places annually, recognising the special commitment to Afghan refugees, the vast majority of applications are ultimately rejected.
While this is normal, the community experiences this as 'waiting times' and updates are not possible on humanitarian applications. It's been observed that Australia sells false hope due to the longstanding program design. For example:
- There are currently near 40,000 Refugee 'unlinked' applications with the Department from people whose only connection to Australia is their application to come here.
- The Special Humanitarian Program is overwhelmed with distant relatives, friends and hopeless applications with little connection to Australia.
- The Community Support Program has drifted away from the intended job-ready more rapid settlement pathway, as Approved Proposing Organisations have clogged the pipeline with near 20,000 applicants.
- The onshore protection visa system remains subject to unacceptable levels of abuse through non-genuine applications, despite really great progress made over the last couple of years including the 'first in first out' system to help break the work scam business model.
Amidst all this, migration agents and lawyers are engaged to advocate on tens of thousands of cases that will never get a visa, and Home Affairs employs staff to eventually dutifully refuse most applications due to capacity, while grappling with endless correspondence and phone calls seeking updates where none are possible.
The consultations this week have been productive and thought provoking, providing suggestions for how the program design could be improved. Your views of course are very welcome as the consultation period runs until 31 March.
In closing now, I'll leave you with some broader observations to continue the discussion. Australia is long past the 'ocean liner' era of migration where boatloads of permanent migrants arrived neatly and that was that. We are a globally connected society and many people come and go on a temporary basis.
Indeed, the permanent migration program now accounts for around 20% of net overseas migration. The majority are students, working holiday makers, New Zealanders, Australians returning home, skilled and other temporary workers.
When the Government sought greater control over student numbers, the Opposition and the Greens political party said no. But we will not back off from the need to manage the size and the shape of onshore the student market. The same logic of course increasingly applies to other temporary visa programs and your insights and ideas are always welcome.
Policy settings that drive long-term temporary stays must continue to be reviewed. I've talked about this since Opposition days and it does our society no good to have people who linger around for years or decades insecurely and is not fair to the individuals involved.
We have cleaned up the mess of permanently temporary migrants in many areas including the shameful TPV/SHEV caseload, COVID loopholes, temporary skilled visas, and inappropriate onshore visitor visa pathways.
The core proposition is that when people come to Australia for a temporary purpose and they complete that purpose, then the default expectation must be that if there is no pathway to permanency then they leave promptly.
The situation we inherited from the former government, through accident rather than design in most instances, where people hop from visa to visa but never make the cut for skilled migration is really quite weird. Australians don't expect this if we go to a foreign country, and neither should visitors to our nation.