12th Feb 2019, 6:11 PM – Representatives Home Affairs Legislation Amendment (Miscellaneous Measures) Bill 2018 - Consideration of Senate Message - Agree with the amendments

The majority voted in favour of a motion that "the Senate amendments be agreed to with the amendments as set out in the schedule circulated to honourable Members."

Why is this vote significant?

According to ABC News, this vote represents the first Government in almost 80 years to lose a vote on its own legislation.

What does the bill do?

According to the bills digest, the bill was introduced to make various amendments to migration, customs and passenger movement laws, including:

• clarifying that where the removal of a non-citizen from the migration zone to another country is unsuccessful, a visa is not required to bring the person back to Australia and they remain subject to statutory bars on subsequent visa applications, where applicable;
• providing that the Minister may make documents available to a person by way of an online account;
• providing that the Commonwealth may appropriate money from the Consolidated Revenue Fund to pay refunds, rebates or drawbacks of customs duty in circumstances where those payments have no other statutory basis; and
• amending the Passenger Movement Charge Collection Act 1978 to specify that regulations may make provision for the charging and recovery of fees in relation to the Passenger Movement Charge.