Two-Pronged Approach, Joint Warnings: Australia's Tough Immigration Line Accused of 'Raising the Stakes' for Domestic Violence Abusers

According to a report by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), Immigration Minister Tony Burke made clear in a National Press Club speech on September 17 that visa overstayers would be sent back into immigration detention, restoring the enforcement scale that existed before 2015. This week, Coalition shadow minister for home affairs and immigration Jonno Duniam further proposed restoring intelligence functions targeting visa overstayers within the Home Affairs portfolio, as part of what Opposition Leader Angus Taylor described as the 'largest immigration reduction in Australia's history.'

The two parties have struck a rare synchrony on the tough immigration line, but this has triggered a concentrated wave of opposition among domestic violence advocates and immigration law scholars: Ann Emmanuel, principal lawyer at the Immigration Advice and Rights Centre of New South Wales, put it bluntly: 'In my view, this crackdown actually hands more power to the abusers.' The centre is the only community legal centre in New South Wales providing advice on all types of immigration and visa matters, and Emmanuel estimates that more than 80 percent of the clients in her main caseload are facing domestic violence issues tied to immigration.

How the visa system is weaponized

Speaking to the ABC, Emmanuel said that during client interviews the centre had repeatedly found that clients had unwittingly become unlawful residents where their partner had never lodged a visa application on their behalf, or had never told them that an application had been refused. Abusers also routinely controlled their partner's visa application process, withheld their passports, and used the threat of removal and detention at every contact with the Home Affairs department.

'This effectively pushes victims into greater risk — they could end up in immigration detention entirely through no fault of their own,' Emmanuel said.

Maria Kissouri, chief executive of the Immigrant Women's Speakout Association of NSW, described an already-occurring reality: 'Abusers are already using threats of removal and detention — these threats are already being used as weapons, and the new policies will only let the fire keep spreading.'

Existing protections criticised as 'fragmented'

Marie Segrave, a University of Melbourne professor who studies the weaponization of temporary visas, told the ABC that politicians had failed to grapple with the complex dependency relationships underlying women's visa overstays. 'The minister's commitment fails to recognise that it also sends a signal to women — you are not safe,' she said. 'In fact, if you are in an overstayer situation, we intend to remove you. This amounts to reinforcing the arm that abusers use to leverage women's visa status.'

According to the ABC, in 2024 the federal government reformed the immigration system, introducing arrangements that allow domestic violence victims to apply for permanent residency without living with the perpetrator, but advocates have criticised the process for requiring documentation — which often does not exist — to prove the relationship was 'genuine,' and for applying only to certain visa categories. 'The domestic violence provisions only kick in once an application for a certain class of visa has already been lodged,' Emmanuel said. 'So the very fact of "about to apply" remains a very effective tool of coercion that abusers continue to use and exploit.'

The misalignment of political responses

In responding to ABC inquiries, Duniam emphasised that the Coalition's policy targets 'people without lawful status,' is aimed at preventing temporary visas and review processes from being 'deliberately exploited,' and stressed that it is 'not about domestic violence victims.' Yet the party acknowledged in the same statement that coercive control can include 'withholding documents, misleading a person about their visa status, or deliberately rendering a victim an unlawful resident without their knowledge' — but did not explain how the proposed expansion of detention would handle the chain of 'illegality' carefully laid down in advance by abusers.

A Home Affairs spokesperson said in a statement that domestic violence was 'unacceptable in any circumstances' and pointed out that the department has dedicated domestic violence support services, but did not specify how, under the proposed expansion of detention and intelligence-enforcement measures, victims' visa safety would be ensured.

The three-year visa still on the shelf

A blueprint released by the National Advocacy Group on Women on Temporary Visas Experiencing Violence recommended the establishment of a new three-year visa that would allow domestic violence victims to work, study, access Medicare and receive social security payments, extendable where necessary to deal with follow-on proceedings such as Family Court matters. Emmanuel said the recommendation would 'change and save lives' and 'would strip abusers, at the root, of the power to use visa status as a means of control and coercion.'

Duniam told the ABC the Coalition had an 'open mind' on this and would 'consider practical proposals that genuinely improve protections for domestic violence victims,' but had so far not announced the creation of such a visa in its immigration policy platform.

Segrave called for any future immigration reform to embed 'safety nets' from the very beginning — 'If it's you, we will provide a pathway; coming forward will not result in punishment,' she said bluntly. 'There is a fracture between the evidence and the ripple effects this policy could produce.' As of the ABC going to press, neither Labor's proposed restoration of detention nor the Coalition's intelligence-function proposal contained the specific visa-protection pathway for domestic violence victims that Segrave has called for.