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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 7 Hansard (25 June) . . Page.. 2456 ..

MS MacDONALD (continuing):

That the Assembly:

expresses its support for the stateless Vietnamese community in the Philippines;

acknowledges the Federal Government has already issued visas in 160 cases;

urges the Federal Government to grant visas to the remaining stateless Vietnamese with Australian relatives.

Mr Speaker, this motion is about a major issue that I hope my Assembly colleagues will support by supporting the motion as it stands. Let me start with some background information. When Saigon fell, more than half a million Vietnamese refugees fled the country. I quote from a briefing written by the Vietnamese community in Australia:

From 1975 until March 1989, all Vietnamese boat people arriving in the Philippines were automatically given refugee status and resettled in various countries around the world.

In 1989, 74 countries signed the UNHCR-sponsored Comprehensive Plan of Action designed to halt the movement of boat people from Vietnam. Under the CPA, asylum seekers were no longer given automatic refugee status.

However, the implementation of the CPA was flawed. The strict cut-off date meant people who arrived the day before the CPA took effect were granted refugee status while those who arrived the day after were subject to the screening process. There was no notice for those leaving Vietnam that this was the case.

The screening process itself was poorly implemented and often involved bribery. It resulted in inconsistent decisions and families being split.

In 1996, the refugee camps were closed and a group of people were sent back to Vietnam. The Catholic Church in the Philippines intervened to stop this happening again, and the rest were allowed to remain in the Philippines, but were not granted permanent residency.

Mr Speaker, about 2,000 stateless Vietnamese remain in the Philippines without the rights of permanent residents and 648 of these people, or 201 families, have Australian relatives who are willing and able to sponsor them. I call on the federal government to grant visas to these 648 people who are in legal limbo. They do not want to return to Vietnam, where they fear prosecution, and rightly so.

I remind members that Amnesty International held a mass email action in May to pressure the Vietnamese government to free Le Chi Quang, who was jailed for using the internet. I do not think any of us would like to return to a country where someone was jailed for using the internet.

I would like to acknowledge that the federal government has already allowed 130 stateless Vietnamese in the Philippines with close Australian relatives to come to Australia. It has also approved in principle 145 visas under the special humanitarian program.