The Governments' latest directive involves advising migration agents that applications for family migration lodged by refugees who arrived to Australia by boat will go to the bottom of the pile. We understand this directive does not take into account age, circumstance or any other individual factors. 

This means; A 15 yr old boy who arrived to Australia alone in 2011 - recoignised as a refugee granted his permanent protection visa in 2012 and weeks later lodged an application for his mother (widowed) and 3 younger siblings to come to Australia has no real hope of ever living in the same country as his mother ever again. The application had been 'in train' for 2yrs, not at all an unsual wait time for such applications. Everyone involved knows that the wait is long, but they also took comfort from knowing there was a process and that they were in a system. That is no longer the case.

The boy will not get protection in another country, he has Australia's protection. The mother and siblings may receive protection somewhere else in the world, but where, when, and will they be able to apply for their (by then) adult son / brother to join them? 

In 2009 the boy and his family were recognised by UNHCR as refugees, ever since they have been awaiting settlement, anywhere safe, just like millions of others. The decision to send the eldest boy in the family was made just after his 15th birthday, just after the two year anniversary of his father's murder by militants at home, 22 months after they had arrived in Malaysia where the boy and his sisters could not attend school, his mother could not legally work and where protection seemed a lost hope. 

What a directive Minister. 

If stopping boats and saving lives is the aim - then wouldn't we encourage family reunion applications, people applying through formal channels where possible -  not forcing people into such desperate positions that their only hope of seeing their child / parent is to also undertake a dangerous boat journey? 

And why does this so-called 'deterrent' directive apply to people who have been in Australia as recognised refugees for years? Whom does that deter? No-one. In fact, if you were the mother mentioned above, faced with persecution at home, another 2 (and potentially 22) years trying to provide for and protect your daughters in a transit country where you have no rights, even faced with the threat of detention on Nauru wouldn't you perhaps consider a boat journey to be reunited with your child in Australia? That family application your son had lodged, it was taking time, but you knew it was there, you had hope. 

Procedure until now had roughly been that applications for family migration were assesed in order of lodgement, whether made by someone who had arrived by plane, by boat, had been here for a year or ten years. There were of course some exceptions and other avenues in extenuating circumstances and other visa options. What we have now is another layer of punishment based on mode of arrival - something prohibited by the Refugee Convention (Article 31). 

This move should be hardly surprising, it is current operational practice to seperate a pregnant woman from her children and husband (woman brought to mainland for scans and other medical needs, rest of family remain detained on Christmas Island). The right to family unity, the best interests of the child and so many of Australia's international obligations are nowhere to be seen in the cruel at all costs asylum policies of our Government.

Guardian Australia coverage of the issue - including comments from Sophie Peer, ChilOut Campaign Director.