The asylum seekers who have been granted Australian permanent visas can sponsor spouse and dependent children to join them in Australia on a partner visa. However, the processing of the partner visas sponsored by these permanent residents are significantly delayed. As a result, families of PRs are unreasonably kept apart. The main reason for delay in the processing is due to the existence of Direction No. 80 of the Ministerial Directions as per the Migration Act 1958. This current ministerial directions (Direction No. 80), stipulates the order for considering and disposing of Family visa applications. The applications sponsored by asylum seeker permanent residents are provided with the lowest priority. Applications affected by this can take as long as 8 years or even more for an outcome. There are very limited circumstances in which these applicants are given priority in processing. The ramifications of such harsh regulations include inability of families to reunite for close to a decade, severe emotional and psychological impacts on the sponsor and their family members and an unfair loss of years of prime time the families or couple are meant to spend together as a unit. Refugee sponsors are PRs and tax payers of Australia. Once they have been accepted as PRs, they must be treated accordingly.

We therefore ask the House to provide the partner visa applications sponsored by asylum seeker permanent residents with the same order of priority as applications sponsored by other permanent residents or citizens of Australia.