“This is Australia at its finest, welcoming and compassionate,” is how Matt Darvas, Micah Australia’s Campaign Director hailed the news that the Albanese government will allow 19,000 holders of Temporary Protection Visas (TPV) and Safe Haven Enterprise Visas (SHEV)to apply for the right to stay in Australia permanently.
Darvas added that he was ” “Privileged to count a number of the people impacted by this decision as friends.”
One of his friends affected is Zaki Haidari a refugee from Afghanistan who is Amnesty International Australia Refugee Rights campaigner. He posted in December: “I was recognised as an Australian Human Rights Commission Human Rights Hero in 2020 and NSW International Student of the Year in 2015, but I can’t forget that I am living and working in Australia on a temporary protection visa. That’s 10 years of living with a dark cloud of uncertainty hanging over my head.”
That dark cloud has been lifted.
“After 10 years I and the other 19,000 refugees can apply for permanent visa! Thanks to all those advocates who advocated for/with us.”
Brad Chillcott, founder of Welcoming Australia welcomed the news. “There are 19,000 people waking up today knowing security, freedom from limbo, the ability to dream about their future without restraint and truly able to call Australia home.
“The word ‘permanant’ never sounded so beautiful.”
The Guardian reports that there are 2,500 people who have been refuse TPV or SHEV, and are not included in the governmnet offer of permanency. “A further 5,000 people whose applications for a TPV or SHEV are under a merits or judicial review will have to wait for that process to complete.”
But 19,000 can now call Australia home.
Update: The conservative Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) welcomed the Albanese policy.
ACL’s National Director of Politics, Wendy Francis, said, “This announcement will bring relief and joy to many vulnerable people who have sought refuge on our shores and who have proved their commitment to our nation’s wellbeing.
“Under TPV restrictions, Mothers and Fathers who fled war-torn nations for the sake of their children have found those same children, now young adults, locked out of university studies unless they can afford international student fees.
“Teenagers who have only ever called Australia home have lived with the uncertainly of life without the hope of citizenship in their own country.”