Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee, , 8:09:04 to 8:13:01
Review of the formalized arrangement between the Department and the NFF to expedite 749 visa applications for the harvest season and the level of ministerial sign-off.
Topics: Agricultural productivity, Integrity
Speakers: Hon Jonathon Duniam, Clare Sharp, Tiali Goodchild, Hon Murray Watt, Michael Willard
So there would be a formal extinguishing of the arrangement. So uh do we know how many applications have been received by the department through this um formalised arrangement?
I don't have that, Senator. Um if Ms. Goodchild has it, she'll approach the table. Otherwise we'll take it on.
No apologies, thank you.
Hello, no, no.
There's around about 749 that have been processed under that arrangement.
And granted?
Yes.
Okay. And uh how many applications all up?
Um so all of the applications are still subject to our normal visa processing, but all of the ones that have been escalated have actually been granted, so it was still the same number.
Okay. All right. And do you know on what date this arrangement kicked off? It was announced on the 24th, but what date was it actually instituted?
I would actually have to take the actual date on notice, Senator.
Okay. All right. So was this I presume the Minister was satisfied that this arrangement was needed to deal with some of the issues that stakeholders were facing?
It was predominantly to deal with with harvest.
Yeah. And so did I guess my question ultimately is going to be, did the minister sign off on this arrangement? Or was it something that the NFF just came to the Department and said we'd like to do this because we have a problem with the way things are tracking and being processed? And the Department said yes, we can do this.
But also with Minister Burke was aware and had no concerns with the approach. And as Mr. Willard was saying, it's not at all uncommon. We do our best to make sure that when there are urgent extenuating circumstances in different contexts, compelling and compassionate, we can move around the system. When you operate a system as large as ours, you need to always have safety valves or escape valves to deal with cases. So this is one example of us being able to flex the system a little bit.
Yes, so I I do think there's many uh well documented cases of being able to expedite, but I suppose when you say it's not unusual, I my point is here that because of a set of circumstances that frankly stakeholders were screaming about and saying this is not working for us, one group of stakeholders has said we want to enter into this arrangement. The arrangement is not usual, is my contention here.
Probably not on the of at the level of formality that we have here, but um but I guess in principle we will be expedited.
Yeah, yeah. And so uh Assistant Minister Hill then was more involved in this. Did he sign off on the arrangement? Or was it one that didn't require ministerial agreement or sign-off?
It doesn't require ministerial agreement for an organization to approach us and say here is a set of cases we'd like you to look at.
Yeah, okay.
Senator Duniam uh come out, but Minister Hill agreed the arrangement with the NFF having discussed it with Minister Burke.
Very good. Okay. Thank you very much. Uh so on the uh the ballots, um was any modelling commissioned around the economic impact of these changes by the department by external agencies, Treasury or the private sector consultant?
There was no private sector consultants used for any modelling by us in relation to migration reform.