Peter Dutton has blasted as ‘un-Australian’ lawyers acting for asylum seekers trying to stay in the country after receiving medical care.
The immigration minister is stripping at least 60 asylum seekers of their fortnightly $200 welfare payments and government-supported housing.
Hundreds of others were ‘ripping the system off’ in the same way.
Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has lashed lawyers acting for asylum seekers needing care
Mr Dutton on Monday bemoaned ‘incredibly frustrating’ constitutional challenges pro-brono ‘social justice’ lawyers have launched to date on behalf of these targeted in the crackdown.
‘These lawyers have been playing the game with these people who are willing participants. We’re a generous nation, but we are not going to be taken for a ride,’ he told Alan Jones on Sydney’s radio station 2GB on Monday.
Jones asked Mr Dutton whether he agreed the lawyers’ behaviour was ‘un-Australian’.
‘Well of course it is and it’s gone on for too long,’ he said.
Welfare payments will be cut off from Monday and the group will have three weeks to move out of government-funded accommodation after being moved on to a final departure bridging visa.
The immigration minister will end $200 fortnightly payments for asylum seekers in Australia
Those affected include people who have come to Australia from offshore detention centres on Manus Island and Nauru for medical treatment.
‘The medical assistance has been provided and there is no need for them to remain in Australia and yet through these legal moves, they’ve found themselves a way,’ Mr Dutton said.
‘You came here requiring medical attention – that was the advice of the doctors that you needed to come here – and you’ve arrived, the medical attention has been provided, there is no reason for you to stay.’
The minister was asked whether he could pass legislation forcing people to leave after receiving medical care.
‘Well there’s constitutional issues involved and as you well know we can’t pass legislation to dispense with that difficulty of the constitutional issues,’ he said.
Immigration Minister Peter Dutton is cutting off welfare payments for 60 asylum seekers
‘So we defend these matters. We fight them in the courts and it is incredibly frustrating.’
Labor and the Greens are looking at overturning the government’s decision, which Bill Shorten has described as Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s ‘weakest move yet.’
‘We will look at whether it is possible to disallow this in the Senate,’ opposition immigration spokesman Shayne Neuman told ABC radio.
The Greens are also taking advice ahead of parliament’s return next week.
Refugee advocates say until now those caught up in the blitz have been prevented from working.
‘And now, completely out of the blue, with no notice whatsoever, they’ve been told tomorrow, you have no income we’re taking all of your income away and in three weeks time we’re taking your homes away,’ Human Rights Law Centre executive director Hugh de Kretser said on Sunday.
His centre and the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre estimate as many as 400 people, including families, could be affected by the crackdown.