‘I can see my family again’: More than 19,000 refugees to qualify for permanent residency

The policy shift on visas is likely to be criticised by the federal opposition, but Labor has repeatedly stated it is committed to Operation Sovereign Borders and turning back asylum seeker boats, with a vessel containing 13 Iraqis sent back to Indonesia last week.

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Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil said, “we said we would do this and we will – deliberately and carefully”.

“Every single person who has attempted to enter Australia by boat has been returned by this government,” she said.

The almost 31,000 asylum seekers affected by Labor’s policy shift mostly arrived in Australia by boat between August 2012 and January 2014 and were designated the “legacy caseload” by the former Abbott government.

The majority of the 19,000 refugees who will be able to become permanent residents come from Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Myanmar and Sri Lanka and currently hold three-year temporary protection visas (known as TPVs) or a similar five-year Safe Haven Enterprise Visas (SHEVs), which they have had to renew at least once over the last decade.

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This masthead has confirmed with two senior sources in the Albanese government that Giles is finalising details of the policy change, which Labor took to the last federal election.

Giles was contacted for comment.

The change will allow 19,000 people to move from a temporary protection or safe haven visa to a Resolution of Status Visa. They will then be able to apply for permanent residency in Australia.

The temporary protection visa was introduced by the Howard government in 1999. It allowed people who were found to be refugees the right to work and access to medical and welfare services, but it did not allow family reunion or work rights and was heavily criticised by refugee advocates.

These visas were abolished by the Rudd government in 2008 but were reintroduced by the Abbott government in 2014 as one of a suite of measures in Operation Sovereign Borders to stop people being smuggled to Australia in boats.

Betia Shakiba’s family fled Iran and attempted to cross from Indonesia to Australia 13 times before they finally made land in 2012 and claimed asylum, when she was only 14.

She said the safe haven visa her family is on – including her father and younger brother – meant they had been “living in limbo for 10 years now” in north-western Melbourne.

“You don’t know whether you could call Australia home or not,” Shakiba said.

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Being granted permanent residency “would finally mean that I would not be classed as a second-class citizen in Australia”.

Last month, independent MPs Andrew Wilkie and Monique Ryan both questioned Giles in parliament about when Labor would implement its promise to abolish TPVs and SHEVs.

The minister told Wilkie that “it’s a commitment I am working towards realising, together with my friend the Minister for Home Affairs [Clare O’Neil]”, signalling the move was close.

David Manne, the executive director of Melbourne’s Refugee Legal Service, said the transformative change was “the right thing to do, it is common sense and humane.

“It would enable thousands of people to rebuild their lives with a true sense of security and belonging and to reunite with family, who they have been separated from for a decade,” he said.

Refugee advocate Paris Aristotle said: “ending a decade of mental anguish and enabling [asylum seekers] to finally be reunited with their spouses and children is the right and decent thing to do”.

NSW Labor MP for Auburn Lynda Voltz said many members of the Afghanistan community living in her western Sydney electorate were on temporary protection visas, living in crowded accommodation and aged in their 60s and 70s.

“It is unsustainable to have a system that requires them to work for the rest of their life in agriculture,” she said. “Any announcement that gives them some chance of permanency takes a huge burden off our local community.”