The Evolution of the Temporary Protection Visa Regime in Australia
| Author | Fethi Mansouri,Michael Leach |
| Date | 01 June 2009 |
| Published date | 01 June 2009 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2435.2008.00483.x |
The Evolution of the Temporary
Protection Visa Regime
in Australia
Fethi Mansouri* and Michael Leach**
ABSTRACT
While the Temporary Protection Visa (TPV) regime was formally intro-
duced in October 1999 by the Howard Government, the concept of tempo-
rary protection was not totally alien to the Australian humanitarian
landscape. Earlier examples reflected a standard use of temporary protec-
tion as a complementary or interim protection mechanism, offering short-
term group-based protection where individual assessment under the 1951
Convention was both impractical and untimely. This paper focuses on the
wider and more controversial changes in the use of temporary protection
mechanisms that were to follow with the introduction of the TPV in 1999,
which offered substitute protection for individually assessed Convention
refugees who had arrived onshore without valid travel documents. It exam-
ines the history and evolution of the TPV policy regime from 1999 to the
announcement of its abolition in 2008, arguing that the introduction and
subsequent development of the policy may be understood as a product of
a conservative, exclusionist political climate in Australia, following the
unprecedented impact of the populist One Nation party in 1998, and later,
the impact of September 11th. It also examines later amendments to the
regime as a response to growing domestic disquiet about the impacts of
the policy, and the abolition of the TPV policy under a new Australian
government elected in late 2007.
* Professor in Migration and Intercultural Studies and Director of the Institute for Citizen-
ship and Globalisation, Deakin University, Melbourne Australia.
** Senior Research Fellow within the Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Faculty of
Arts and Education, Deakin University, Melbourne Australia.
2008 The Authors
Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd., Journal Compilation 2008 IOM
9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK, International Migration Vol. 47 (2) 2009
and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA. ISSN 0020-7985
doi:10.1111/j.1468-2435.2008.00483.x
INTRODUCTION
By the time the Temporary Protection Visa (TPV) regime was formally
introduced in October 1999 by the conservative Howard Government,
the concept of temporary protection was not totally foreign to the Aus-
tralian humanitarian landscape. The first temporary humanitarian pro-
tection visas for asylum seekers were introduced by the Hawke Labor
Government in 1990 in response to the massacre of students at Tianan-
men Square in 1989. Prime Minister Bob Hawke famously wept in pub-
lic as he committed to protect Chinese nationals in Australia on student
visas, issuing them with four-year temporary protection visas.
1
Hawke’s
decision was unpopular amongst his own party, the Liberal opposition
and the Immigration Department bureaucracy. Some 20,000 Chinese
nationals granted the four-year ‘‘Domestic Protection (Temporary)
Entry Permits’’ were eventually permitted to remain permanently in
Australia. The policy was considered unsuccessful and was quickly
ended. Along with the Temporary Safe Haven programme for Kosovar
and East Timorese
2
refugees in 1999 (Taylor, 2000), this example
reflected a standard use of temporary protection, offering short-term
group-based protection where individual assessment under the 1951
Convention was both impractical and untimely. This paper will focus on
the more controversial changes in the use of temporary protection mech-
anisms that were to follow. In 1999 and 2001, three new visa subclasses
3
extended temporary protection to individually assessed Convention refu-
gees where such persons, as asylum seekers, had arrived onshore (or had
attempted to do so before interception) without a valid visa. This paper
analyses the evolving TPV regime as a product of an exclusionist politi-
cal climate, and examines later developments in response to growing
domestic anxiety about the impact of the policy, and coordinated com-
munity campaigns to mitigate its influence.
CONSERVATIVE NATIONALISM IN AUSTRALIA AND THE
INTRODUCTION OF THE TPV
The Howard Government came to power in 1996 following thirteen
years of Labor government that had resulted in fundamental changes to
the Australian economy and society. Under the Hawke-Keating Labor
governments, economic upheaval was accompanied by challenging
debates over national identity: the idea of a Republic, Native Title, rec-
onciliation, and high profile ‘‘official’’ multiculturalism. Howard was
102 Mansouri and Leach
2008 The Authors
Journal Compilation 2008 IOM
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