Albanese government’s plan to strip asylum seekers of work rights will fuel exploitation

In August, the ABC revealed the Albanese Government was considering stripping work rights from people seeking asylum as they move through lengthy appeals processes, to ‘encourage them to leave the country’ once their applications are rejected by the Department of Home Affairs. But this is a tried-and-failed policy that won’t achieve its objective and will increase the already rampant exploitation of migrant workers in Australia.

To state the obvious, appeal rights are crucial when dealing with questions of life and death, and no one should be ‘encouraged’ to forfeit them. The Department frequently makes the wrong decision. It refuses over 85% of asylum claims, often without interviewing the applicant. Last year, the Administrative Review Tribunal overturned more than 1,800 of those decisions. Another 5% were overturned by the courts.

Under the Albanese Government’s proposal, people whose applications are wrongly refused would be forced to choose between destitution in Australia or returning to imminent danger.

Once the gravity of that choice is understood, it becomes clear that stripping work rights from people seeking asylum will achieve little other than pushing thousands into cash economy to survive. Workers in the cash economy are at significantly higher risk of workplace exploitation and modern slavery.

A 2024 survey by the Migrant Justice Institute found that 90% of migrants working in cash jobs were paid below their minimum entitlements. It also reported employers threatening workers, confiscating their passports and restricting their movement. The risk is even higher for those without work rights, who are more likely to endure poor working conditions than risk visa cancellation and immigration detention if they speak up.

This is not the first time governments have threatened asylum seekers with destitution to force them out of the country. In 1997, the Howard Government introduced a rule denying work rights to anyone who lodged a protection application more than 45 days after they arrived in Australia. The Labor Government abolished it in 2009 after a decade of evidence showed that it led to acute poverty, homelessness and dire health consequences for people with pending asylum claims.

That changed again in 2012. As part of the ‘no advantage’ policy designed to deter people from seeking asylum by boat, thousands of people spent years on bridging visas without permission to work. Despite not knowing if or when their refugee claims would be considered, and being deprived of the right to work, the vast majority remained in Australia because returning home was not an option.

In more recent years, when the Coalition Government was forced to bring refugees back from Nauru and Papua New Guinea for urgent medical treatment, the tactic was rolled out again. To coerce people back to the offshore detention camps, the Government issued them with bridging visas valid for as little as three months, with no work rights. The tactic failed and, despite the odds, people found ways to rebuild their lives in Australia.