Shorten, Mitchell clash over overflow of 'asylum sneakers'
Former Labor leader Bill Shorten and 3AW presenter Neil Mitchell have clashed over visa holders trying to claim refugee status in Australia.
Dubbed "asylum sneakers", people on student and holiday visas are arriving in Australia by plane and claiming they are refugees once already here, reports the Daily Telegraph.
There is an estimated 100,000 clogging the Australian migration system, meaning delays for asylum seekers legitimately waiting overseas.
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But Shorten, who is now Minister for Government Services and NDIS, told Today the number of people doing this is below pre-pandemic levels and directed the blame on the previous government.
"Forty per cent of the people who are doing this have been here more than two years, so they came under the Libs," Shorten said.
"The reality is our migration system, like so much of the government we have inherited upon election, have been allowed to run to rack and ruin."
But while Shorten said the Administrative Appeals Tribunal had "become a sinkhole of not dealing with issue" under the Morrison Government, Mitchell reminded him the issue was around long before the previous government took control.
"It's cruel, it's cruel to the people that are waiting, cruel to the taxpayer picking up the bill and nonsense to say it is all the Morrison government's fault - It was just as bad under your government," Mitchell said.
Mitchell argued the issue has been around longer than when Morrison was in charge and the current government needed to take responsibility. Today
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"Have responsibility, you can't keep blaming the previous lot -just take responsibility."
Shorten called out Mitchell, saying he "could set his watch" to his counterpart "giving a leave pass" to the Morrison Government.
"The problem is the facts don't always fit to your convenient view," he told Mitchell.
"Forty per cent of these people have been here more than two years - hello mate, we weren't in government two years ago."
See more of the heated debate between Shorten and Mitchell in the video above
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