The Federal Government is considering new laws to cancel the visas of people convicted of serious crimes and even to initiate deportation procedures.
It comes amid reports Cabinet is powerless to act against the tens of thousands of visa overstayers in Australia and follows calls for tougher measures to find them.
Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton, saying criminals should not become citizens, has proposed a plan to automatically cancel the visas of those convicted of serious crimes.
Mr Dutton, speaking on 3AW Radio in Melbourne, says people should not be rewarded for doing the wrong thing.
The visa crackdown, proposed recently by a Liberal-led parliamentary committee, would give the government power to deport violent foreign criminals as young as age 16.
In January last year, Victoria Police chief commissioner Graham Ashton said migrants who commit violent crimes should be, as he put it, "shipped back to their own country."
Victorian authorities have referred an unknown number of adults and youths to the federal government, resulting in several visa cancellations and deportation orders. Mr Dutton has praised the progress made.
The Greens strongly oppose the Government's proposed changes to citizenship laws, rejected by the Senate in October. They included requiring applicants to live in Australia for four years on permanent-residency visas before applying for citizenship. And they also included potentially barring people with a history of family violence or involvement in crime from applying at all. They also would have extended Peter Dutton's powers, but Greens immigration spokesman Nick McKim says the Minister already has strong authority.
Labor has accused the Government of an unfair focus on crime committed by migrants and refugees but has backed moves to cancel visas and deport criminal non-citizens. The Daily Telegraph newspaper is reporting officials in the Department of Home Affairs also want more scope to deal with tens of thousands of visa over stayers living in Australia. While a quarter of the migrants are from Malaysia or China, 5,000 are from the United States, and close to 4,000 are British.
In July last year, almost 65,000 people held lapsed visas, most of them tourist or student visas. Senator McKim says the numbers show the Government has been demonizing the wrong sector of the community.
The Opposition has raised concerns over wages, worker exploitation and local workers missing out on jobs.
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