Immigration Minister Peter Dutton is seeking what the Labor opposition calls "Trump-like" powers to target foreign nationals and require them to revalidate their visas.
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The proposed Migration Act amendments would allow Mr Dutton to compel entire groups of visa-holders to pass a revalidation check, based on their nationality, place of residence or travel history.
Elements of the bill have been criticised by numerous legal experts for being "too broad" and handing "excessive discretion" to Mr Dutton without parliamentary checks.
Labor had originally signalled its intent to support the bill - to be debated on Wednesday - but has now decided to oppose it unless the offending elements are removed.
It sets up another potential showdown over national security and immigration, with the government likely to paint the opposition as weak on potential border security risks.
The controversy stems from Schedule 1 of the bill, which gives the minister discretion to require "a class of persons" to revalidate their visa if it is "in the public interest".
The minister could refuse to revalidate the person's visa if the minister were in possession of "adverse information" relating to the person - a broad and undefined term.
The bill's explanatory memorandum stipulates the minister may consider public health and safety, national security, Australia's economic wellbeing or the circumstances in a person's home country when making their decision.
Mr Dutton says the bill is necessary to facilitate the introduction of longer-term visas, such as a 10-year multiple-entry visitor visa for Chinese nationals.
But legal experts and now Labor have questioned why the minister's powers to compel revalidation have been extended to all visa types.
The bill allows Mr Dutton to "identify any group of people based on a shared common characteristic or circumstance", such as whether the group:
- Holds a particular passport.
- Lives in a particular country.
- Lives in a particular state or province within a country.
- May have travelled through a particular area during a particular time.
- Applied for the visa during particular dates.
Labor's immigration spokesman, Shayne Neumann, said Mr Dutton was making a Donald Trump-esque bid to target people from particular regions of the globe, referring to the US President's recent executive order on immigration.
"Labor cannot give Trump-like powers to a man that has such a high desire to see a divided Australia," he said.
"Labor won't support a bill that could see whole groups of people targeting based on their place of birth, passport or religion.
"This minister cannot be trusted with wide-ranging, unfettered powers over the visas of whole groups of people."
But the Turnbull government says the changes would actually encourage more people to come to Australia and make it easier for them to travel back and forth frequently over a 10-year period.
"This will result in a significant reduction in red tape for low-risk, high-volume travellers to Australia," Mr Dutton told Parliament in October. "It is an example of how we are making the visa process for travellers easier, and seamless."
In a submission to a Senate inquiry, the Law Council of Australia warned the bill granted the minister powers that were "too broad" and undermined the normal checks and balances built into the Migration Act.
At the moment, the minister has the power to cancel a visa on character or emergency security grounds. But the test of "adverse information" prescribed by the new bill appears to go much further.
LCA president Fiona McLeod SC told Fairfax Media the bill was "the widest expansion of the minister's powers to cancel visas" since the introduction of the character test, and had "obvious potential for abuse, arbitrary decision-making and injustice".
The powers granted to the minister by the bill would not be subject to disallowance in the Senate. Instead, he or she would be required to table a statement of their reasons in both houses of Parliament within six months.
Mr Dutton told Parliament last year: "A serious incident overseas, for example, may create a situation where it is in the public interest to reassess a number of longer-validity visa holders' individual circumstances."
In response to the Law Council, the Department of Immigration and Border Protection said the minister's powers were "intended to be broad" to ensure flexibility with other visa classes that may be introduced in the future.
The department said the scope of the term "adverse information" was broad in order to "allow for flexibility in addressing future changes in both domestic and global circumstances".
The Parliament would be able to disallow a certain class of visa being subject to the law, the department said.
