Asylum seeker warns politician he will be sucked into a life of CRIME if his visa isn’t approved

An asylum seeker who has been waiting for years for an Australian visa has criticised a Labor MP over immigration laws, complaining that he does not want to end up in crime but that the government will not let him work or study.

Footage of the conversation between Julian Hill, the Labor Party’s assistant minister for citizenship and multicultural affairs, and a foreign national was captured on Monday during a protest outside Hill’s office in Dandenong, in Melbourne’s south-east.

The protest has been going on for about 65 days and is being organised by refugee groups, some of whom say they have been waiting for a government decision on their Australian residency status for more than 12 years.

In the video, which was shared on TikTok, Hill was on his way to lunch when he got into a conversation with a male protester who expressed extreme frustration with the visa process.

The demonstrator is not seen in the images.

Mr Hill said: ‘I have a lot of contact with the community here and talk to people. I am aware of the issues.

The government has issued 19,000 permanent visas to people who [temporary protection visas] And [safe haven enterprise visas].

He explained that “a few thousand” people have moved from the bridging visa queue to the status resolution queue, meaning they have been granted permanent residency.

The protester said he was grateful to the government for providing the visas, but said many people who were rejected in the previous government’s fast-track program are “just sitting in limbo.”

The expedited procedure was an attempt by the Coalition to streamline the process, but ultimately resulted in individual cases not being properly assessed, the definition of a refugee being changed, and the application being 60 pages long and only available in English.

In the video, the man says: ‘Personally, I have no right to work and no right to study… So how am I going to survive? I don’t want to go into crime.’

Protesters have been standing outside Hill’s office for about 64 days

Mr Hill interrupted the protester and said that criminal activity would reflect negatively on his visa application: ‘Don’t do that, it gives you character problems.’

He replied, “That’s just it: I try to do the right thing and the government punishes me.”

In the video, the man explains that he was in the audience on September 2 during an episode of ABC’s Q&A, where Hill was a panelist and said Labor was committed to ensuring all refugee cases were resolved as quickly as possible.

His comments were in response to a question from a Tamil refugee, who said three people from her community in the Dandenong region had committed suicide in the past six weeks because they were at risk of deportation under the fast-track procedure.

Julian Hill (pictured in Parliament) is the Assistant Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs

“Why can’t the Labor government grant us permanent visas after 12 to 15 years in Australia when 8,500 people were affected by the previous government’s fast-track process and have no future here?” she asked.

Mr Hill thanked her for her question and said he was deeply sorry that the three members of the community had died.

He said: ‘It has not been politically popular and it has not been without controversy from Peter Dutton that we have now granted permanent protection visas to this country to 19,000 people who have been in limbo for a decade.

“It is damaging to our community, our society and our country to permanently employ temporary migrants who have been declared genuine refugees and are entitled to protection from Australia.”

He said that there are still about 1,000 cases to be processed. These cases are lagging behind because there are complex identity questions.

“But more are being granted every week,” he continued.

‘About the people on bridging visas … there is a lot of misinformation on social media about this. There are about 200 people who are still in court, and there are about 4,500 who are still in court for a judicial review process.

“We have given the courts more resources to speed up decisions. There are now about 2,000 people who had a bridging visa and could now apply for a permanent visa. They are also now in the queue.

Mr Hill explained that there are about 2,500 people who are not genuine refugees and that some of them were part of the previous government’s fast-track process.