Abbott Government to dismantle Australia's U.N. refugee convention obligations by enshrining a new 'right' for government to ignore the finding of any court in the land

Australia has been a state party to the United Nations 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees since 1954, to the 1967 Protocol since 1973 and to the 1987 Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment since 1989.

Yet the Abbott Government is intent on nullifying the effect these conventions and protocol have on Australian domestic law and government policy.

The Age 6 November 2014:

If passed, The Migration and Maritime Powers Legislation Amendment (Resolving the Asylum Legacy Caseload) Bill would effectively enshrine in law the mistreatment of asylum seekers and refugees who flee to our country to escape persecution, torture and death.

The legislation is the perverse creation of a Government prepared to tear up the rule of law for its own political ends. It bestows an unprecedented level of power on the immigration minister to make life and death decisions about individual refugee cases. It creates a regime where the chance of sending people back to a situation of grave danger, or even death, is a real possibility. 

It denies permanent protection to those found to be refugees, simply because of their mode of arrival to this country.  Even babies born on Australian soil to parents who arrived by boat will be denied protection, rendered stateless and detained offshore until being "resettled" in squalor and risk of attack on Nauru. We should rightly ask, if the government is prepared to be so cruel and give itself this much unchecked power over refugees, who's next?....

As well as circumventing Australian law, the bill also seeks to put the government above international maritime law, so it can send people on boats back to the country they're fleeing from, without any court oversight. 

Excerpts from the Explanatory Memorandum to The Migration and Maritime Powers Legislation Amendment (Resolving the Asylum Legacy Caseload) Bill:

provide that the rules of natural justice do not apply to a range of powers in the Maritime Powers Act, including the powers to authorise the exercise of maritime powers, the new Ministerial powers and the exercise of powers to hold and move vessels and persons;

ensure that the exercise of a range of powers cannot be invalidated because a court considers there has been a failure to consider, properly consider, or comply with Australia‘s international obligations, or the international obligations or domestic law of any other country;

Excerpts from The Migration and Maritime Powers Legislation Amendment (Resolving the Asylum Legacy Caseload) Bill: 

197C Australia’s non-refoulement obligations irrelevant to removal of unlawful non-citizens under section 198

(1) For the purposes of section 198, it is irrelevant whether Australia has non-refoulement obligations in respect of an unlawful  non-citizen.

(2) An officer’s duty to remove as soon as reasonably practicable an unlawful non-citizen under section 198 arises irrespective of whether there has been an assessment, according to law, of Australia’s non-refoulement obligations in respect of the non-citizen.

(1A) For the purposes of this Act, a person is also an unauthorised maritime arrival if:

the person is born in the migration zone; and

(b) a parent of the person is, at the time of the person’s birth, an unauthorised maritime arrival because of subsection (1) (no matter where that parent is at the time of the birth); and

5 (c) the person is not an Australian citizen at the time of birth.

Note 1: For who is a parent of a person, see the definition in subsection 5(1) 7 and section 5CA.

Note 2: A parent of the person may be an unauthorised maritime arrival even if the parent holds, or has held, a visa.

Note 3: A person to whom this subsection applies is an unauthorised maritime arrival even if the person is taken to have been granted a visa because of section 78 (which deals with the birth in Australia of non-citizens).

Note 4: For when a person is an Australian citizen at the time of his or her birth, see section 12 of the Australian Citizenship Act 2007.

Note 5: This subsection applies even if the person was born before the commencement of the subsection. See the Migration and Maritime Powers Legislation Amendment (Resolving the Asylum Legacy Caseload) Act 2014.

22A Failure to consider international obligations etc. does not  invalidate authorisation

(1) The exercise of a power to give an authorisation under a provision of this Division is not invalid:

(a) because of a failure to consider Australia’s international obligations, or the international obligations or domestic law of any other country; or

(b) because of a defective consideration of Australia’s international obligations, or the international obligations or

domestic law of any other country; or

(c) because the exercise of the power is inconsistent with Australia’s international obligations

Subsection (1) is not to be taken to imply that the exercise of a power under any other provision of this Act is invalid for a reason of a kind specified in paragraph (1)(a), (b) or (c).

22B Rules of natural justice do not apply to authorisations

(1) The rules of natural justice do not apply to the exercise of a power to give an authorisation under a provision of this Division.

(2) Subsection (1) is not to be taken to imply that the rules of natural justice do apply in relation to the exercise of powers under any other provision of this Act.