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Anthony Albanese reached a new low by rushing a series of brutal anti-asylum seeker bills through parliament, with the help of the Coalition, in the last sitting day of the year.

The new laws — , and  — passed on November 28 target more than  already traumatised people.

They provide government with more options to cancel visas and detain and remove people’s refugee status to deport them.

Experts in refugee law say they also attempt to the government from being sued for removing a person from Australia or their treatment in a third country.

Ogy Simic from the said the laws are the most “brutal, racist, anti-migrant and anti-refugee laws since the White Australia Policy”.

“There’s no longer any difference between the major parties on migration,” he added.

Despite the High Court’s findings in November last year that mandatory indefinite detention is unconstitutional, Labor’s deportation bill (Migration Amendment Bill 2024) will entrench the discriminatory and racist provisions of the Migration Act that allow extra-judicial punishment of non-citizens.

According to the Human Rights Law Centre, the government now has unprecedented :

• Impose travel bans on entire countries;

• Jail people for refusing to assist with their own deportation — including those who have lived in Australia for years;

• Exile people to be warehoused in third countries forever; and

• Disconnect people from lifesaving communication with their families.

The last particularly cruel measure prohibits mobile phones in immigration detention, thereby preventing asylum seekers from being able to contact lawyers, family and social supports. It also prevents them from reporting abuse in the centre.

Labor opposed this draconian measure in 2020 when it was in opposition.

Advocates, legal experts, human rights activists and frontline workers have roundly Albanese for the “brutal and knee-jerk expansion of powers”. Refugee advocates had been in Canberra for days trying to persuade Labor not to proceed with the bills.

Refugee Council of Australia spokesperson  said: “The new laws are some of the most extreme that we have seen in over a decade and will have major consequences for refugee, migrant and multicultural communities.”

While the full impact of the new laws is yet to be seen, Power said Australia now has the power to “pay undisclosed third countries to take non-citizens, including recognised refugees with Australian citizen family members, without any safeguards to prevent any harm, detention or return to persecution”.

He said imprison people who will not return to countries where they fear for their lives. It would also “create a travel ban on citizens trying to visit Australia for study, business, tourism or to see family, in an effort to pressure their governments into accepting forced returns”.

Australia can now also reverse its protection findings and remove people and conduct searches on those in immigration detention.

Power said the “draconian measures” will have a “disastrous and long-term ripple effect on the Australian community”.

Protect the community?

Labor pretends these new laws will only apply to a , falsely arguing it has to “protect” the community after last year’s High Court ruling.

But law and justice academics from the said the removal powers are not limited to non-citizens with criminal histories.

They warned that the “rushed” bills with “sweeping powers” could “deport a wide group of people, including refugees and people seeking asylum who have lived in and contributed to the Australian community for years”.

They will separate families from their communities and devastate those citizens and permanent residents who are left behind.

Those affected by the High Court case that ended indefinite detention, and those on a bridging visa, could be at risk. This includes people who are victims of the flawed fast-track system and Medevac refugees who were brought to Australia from Manus Island and Nauru.

It is already bad enough that governments use Section 501 of the Migration Act, a cruel policy that sentences people to a life of isolation and poverty and allows their visas to be cancelled.

The new laws reach a new level of cruelty. They will expand offshore detention, give government new powers to deport people to any new country — without the need to show they pose a risk to the community. That country can then deport refugees back to the country and danger they fled from in the first place.

Overriding UN conventions

Refugee Action Collective activist Mariota Spens told �鶹��ý that the new laws show that “Australia has overridden the United Nations [refugee] convention”.

“They show Labor’s unwavering commitment to Operation Sovereign Borders [a military-led border security operation],” she said.

“Australia’s policy of exiling asylum seekers who arrive by boat is extremely cruel and inhumane.

“If Australia decides a person is not a refugee, that person is not entitled to protection and they have no pathway to stay here,” Spens said.

“Under the , the government can’t deport a refugee to danger, but they can technically deport them to a life of misery in Nauru.

“People who should be granted protection could be forced to a country where they risk persecution, violence or even death — the very reasons they fled and sought asylum here.”

This is not the first time Labor has capitulated to the Liberals’ racism and “tough on borders” approach. Labor was complicit in Peter Dutton-Scott Morrison’s war on refugees and has a history of competing with the Coalition for the most racist refugee policies.

said on X that the “brutal and nasty” bills are “empowering Dutton and harming marginalised people”. 

He said Albanese had “surrendered political leadership” to Dutton, handing him “everything he wants in terms of cruelty to migrants and asylum seekers”.

The new laws also use such vague, and often racist, criteria, they could block everyone from designated countries.

Refugee rights activists had been warning about “Trump-like” travel bans. The United States president-elect campaigned hard on racist anti-immigration policies, including using the military to enforce the mass deportation of refugees.

while the Labor government tries to “absolve itself of any responsibility”, everyday Australians will need to “support families forced apart by these laws”, as well as “demand accountability and transparency”.

The celebrated Kurdish-Iranian refugee activist and artist Australia’s immigration system as a “perpetual labyrinth of violence”.

 that the new laws “expand the regime of banishment (offshore detention) and allows the government to make agreements with third countries like Nauru and others”.

“This bill separates many families — including children — with some family members detained, deported, or sent to a third country.

“We know that family separation has been part of the identity of Australia’s detention system.

“What is clear is that the Australian government is following the same pattern of using refugees as political tools close to elections.

“As always, refugees — one of the most marginalised communities — are easy targets.”