Almost 48,000 people who have been refused protection visas and run out of appeals are still in Australia, a Senate committee has been told.
Andrew Kiley, who heads the migration policy division at the Department of Home Affairs, told a Senate Estimates hearing on Oct. 27 that 47,715 people had “completed those processes and have not yet departed.”
Another 45,143 people are waiting on the Administrative Review Tribunal, which takes a fresh look at refused claims, while 18,120 have taken their cases to court after the tribunal ruled against them.
Taken together, that means about 111,000 people whose claims for protection have been refused at least once are still living in Australia.
The figures were given in answer to questions from Senator Fatima Payman, formerly of the Labor Party.
Figures given to Senate Estimates a year earlier showed 48,041 people were waiting on the Tribunal at Aug. 31, 2025, and 14,525 were seeking court review.
That means the Tribunal’s queue has shrunk by about 2,900 cases in a year, while the number of people in the courts has grown by about 3,600.
Medicare Access for Those Awaiting Visa Cases
Michael Willard, a deputy secretary in the Department’s immigration programmes group, said most people waiting for a first decision or on the tribunal could still use Medicare.
Access generally depended on whether a person had been allowed to work while their claim was assessed, he said, and it was more limited for those whose cases were before the courts.
He said the Department could not say exactly how many people in that group were without Medicare.
Deputy Secretary of Immigration Compliance Michael Thomas said Services Australia was now correcting what he called an “incorrect interpretation” of when a visa application is finally decided.
As a result, people seeking court review, or asking the minister to personally intervene, are generally not eligible for Medicare, he said. He said Services Australia, which is leading the change, was still working out how many people would be affected.
Payman asked the department to provide, on notice, a state-by-state breakdown of asylum seekers without Medicare, and of those banned from working, including their countries of origin, gender and age.
Most people seeking asylum live in the community on bridging visas, which allow them to stay lawfully while their claims are decided.
The Department warns on its website that a refused protection visa stays on a person’s immigration record for life, and that people who are refused cannot apply for most other visas while they remain in Australia.
