Immigration Amnesties in Australia: Lessons for Law Reform from Past Campaigns

Abstract

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been growing calls to regularise the status of the over 64,000 undocumented people currently living in Australia without regular immigration status. Australia has previously had three legal immigration amnesties in 1974, 1976 and 1980. Yet, the history of these amnesties is little known. This article draws on newly-released and previously unexamined historical materials, including archival government documents and contemporaneous jurisprudence, to present an original account of Australia’s three past immigration amnesties as novel moments of executive power and decision-making in the realm of migration law. In doing so, it analyses their legislative context, their implementation and effectiveness in practice, and their legal legacies. Finally, the article addresses the lessons of these past immigration amnesties for current law reform and regularisation efforts, and for Australian migration law today.