The immigration minister, Andrew Giles, has suggested Labor will allow the Nadesalingam family to remain in Biloela “with certainty” and said the government won’t pursue a controversial bill that would lower the bar for visa cancellations.
Giles accused the previous Coalition government of “playing politics” with vulnerable people when it introduced the bill and neglected other immigration functions – resulting in a blowout in wait times for visas.
As one of its first acts, the Albanese government allowed the Nadesalingam family to return to Biloela on bridging visas.
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has said he sees “no impediment” to allowing them to stay but the government is yet to confirm when and how this will be achieved.
Asked if it could involve permanent residency, Giles told Guardian Australia: “What I’m intending to do is enable to allow the family to continue in Biloela with certainty which is the position that the prime minister has also articulated.”
“That’s what the community wants and what Australians expect,” he said.
Albanese met the Nadesalingam family on Wednesday after a cabinet meeting in Gladstone.
The Nadesalingam family is part of a cohort of about 30,000 people seeking asylum who arrived in Australia by boat between August 2012 and December 2013. Labor has not said what will happen to others who have not been found to be refugees in that cohort.
Giles indicated the Nadesalingam precedent would not necessarily be applied universally – with cases to be treated on a case-by-base basis.
“The powers under the [Migration] Act are discretionary for a reason, because the law can’t codify all unjust circumstances,” he said.
“These are special circumstances and deserve to be treated on their merits. I think what we’ve seen here is a groundswell within that community [for the Biloela family to stay].”
Labor has made commitments in its platform to abolish temporary protection visas for refugees and to re-evaluate the cases of those found not to be owed protection through the “fast-track assessment” process.
Giles said he was determined to “meet the commitments” but would act in a “considered way” after taking advice and prioritising issues that required urgent action over more complex challenges in the portfolio.
“It really is quite an extraordinary time where we are in the process of restarting effectively the migration program,” he said, citing more immediate commitments to address skilled migration at the full employment summit.
On the strengthening character test bill, which would increase the number of people that automatically fail the character test – expanding deportations and decreasing rights to merits review – Giles said the bill had lapsed along with others not passed before the dissolution of the last parliament.
“Obviously, it was frustrating with that bill, as with so many other issues in the migration space, that we saw the former government determined to play politics rather than look to durable policy solutions,” he said. “I’m hopeful in opposition they’ll take a different view.”
Giles said the opposition should recognise Australia was “a modern nation that has been built on migration” and should accept the “enormous contribution of migrants, thinking about the things that unite us rather than constantly looking for division and playing politics with the lives of vulnerable people”.
Giles noted that the New Zealand prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, had again raised visa cancellations with the Australian government, which she had “highlighted for some time”.
Labor is mulling a ministerial direction to soften the application of the policy but will retain the power to cancel visas.
Giles said “ridiculous delays” and backlogs for skilled and family visas were evidence of the “neglect of the immigration functions of national government” that has “impacted on the lives of Australians … and the strength and resilience of the Australian economy”.
These were “causing enormous frustration in businesses across the economy and, obviously, angst among the individuals”, he said.
“Fixing the backlog is an absolute priority for me and for the government … but we’ve got to make sure our immigration system is fit for purpose.”
Giles said the previous government had failed to deal with migrant worker exploitation and the increasing reliance on temporary workers. He said Labor would consider “greater pathways to permanency”.
