MIGRATION ACT

The Hon. K.L. VINCENT (15:12): I seek leave to make a belief explanation before asking the Minister for Social Inclusion and Disabilities questions regarding the social inclusion of immigrants to South Australia, especially for people with disabilities.

Leave granted.

The Hon. K.L. VINCENT: Today's Advertiser carries a front-page story on two families struggling in their attempts to migrate to South Australia, despite both providing much needed skills to our state. Both families have a child with a disability, and these are the grounds being used to deny them and their families valid visas. In the most recent case a UK police officer planning to work in regional South Australia has been denied access at all on the basis that he has a 25 year old stepdaughter with autism who may need to access our health care, disability or community services at some point.

Never mind the fact that she can already hold down two part-time jobs in the UK and volunteers, plus she was planning to study hairdressing once relocating to Australia: she is a functioning member of society who is likely to pay taxes with the rest of us and speculatively may need some extra assistance with education or employment. Her stepfather had spent $8,000 being accepted by SAPOL and was due to migrate with his family to Ceduna to begin work. I am sure we are all aware that there are a significant number of skill shortages in South Australia's regional areas, and now there is one more police officer vacancy we will find hard to fill, given the rejection of this qualified police officer and his family.

This raises many serious concerns about just how many skilled and diverse immigrants to this state we are missing out on because there is a family member with a serious or physical mental illness or disability. Given that the federal Immigration Act forbids the family's own insurance, financial or other means for managing illness or disability, blanket discrimination is assured against anyone with a chronic mental or physical illness or disability.

In 2012 it seems that features in the implementation of our Migration Act explicitly discriminate against people with disabilities and those who have had a serious or chronic illness. As the retrograde White Australia Policy was for potential multicultural entrants to Australia half a century ago, our Migration Act still acts as a harsh discriminatory barrier for people with disabilities and illness.

Our Migration Act does not even grant the medical officer of the commonwealth discretion to assess the personal funds or private insurance means of potential entrants in assessing visas; it is based on what a hypothetical person with autism, for example, might need to access within our health and community services. Engineers sometimes have disabilities, police officers sometimes get cancer and mining workers sometimes have mental illnesses. Despite needing these workers in South Australia, these people are not allowed because they face this blanket ban. My questions to the minister are:

1. Is the minister concerned that our federal Migration Act discriminates against anyone with a disability, chronic or serious illness, and that we are effectively socially excluding people with disabilities from the South Australian community?

2. Has the minister raised the issue with his federal counterpart, immigration and citizenship minister Chris Bowen?

3. Is the minister seeking to have the federal Migration Act amended so that South Australia does not appear socially exclusionary on the international stage and does not miss out on the creativity and skills that these immigrants might bring?

4. Given that South Australia has previously requested additional immigrants to assist with skills shortages, has the minister discussed with either his state or federal counterparts targeting immigrants with disabilities (or families thereof) to make this state a vibrant, diverse, socially-inclusive place that offers opportunities to immigrants from all over the world?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Communities and Social Inclusion, Minister for Social Housing, Minister for Disabilities, Minister for Youth, Minister for Volunteers) (15:16): I thank the honourable member for her very important question and congratulate her for her ongoing interest in this area. As honourable members will know, the issuing of visas for people who wish to immigrate to our country is a matter for the federal government, not a matter for me as Minister for Disabilities.

However, I think it is well past time that we, as a society, saw the potential in all people with disabilities and do not just look at their disability as their defining feature. They are people like the rest of us, with their own strengths, and as a society we should be looking at those strengths and the potential they can offer to our community. As the honourable member raised in her question, or has sought to prompt me to raise, I can advise that I have already drafted a letter to the federal minister raising this very issue and seeking his support to reconsider the matter.