1832131 (Refugee)

The Administrative Appeals Tribunal considered the protection visa applications of a Malaysian couple, the first applicant being a [age]-year-old ethnic Chinese Buddhist man from Negeri Sembilan. The applicants arrived in Australia in September 2016, later returning to Malaysia for a period before re-entering Australia and applying for protection visas in March 2018. The first applicant's claims for protection were based on alleged riots and terrorism, insecurity due to robberies and serious crime, and poor government leadership and corruption.

The Tribunal was required to determine whether the first applicant had a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, as defined by the Migration Act 1958, or whether he faced a real risk of suffering significant harm as a necessary and foreseeable consequence of removal to Malaysia. This involved assessing the genuineness of his claims, particularly in light of his stated intention to seek work with longer hours and his return to Malaysia.

The Tribunal found that the first applicant's primary motivation for seeking a protection visa appeared to be economic, to obtain more favourable working hours and a better lifestyle, rather than a genuine fear of persecution. While acknowledging he had been a victim of property crime in 2015, the Tribunal was not satisfied that he faced a real chance of suffering serious or significant harm upon return to Malaysia. The Tribunal noted that the first applicant stated he did not fear harm from riots or terrorism and had not experienced such incidents personally. Furthermore, the Tribunal considered that any economic hardship he might face did not meet the definition of "significant harm" under the Act.

Consequently, the Tribunal affirmed the decision not to grant the applicants a protection visa, as they did not satisfy the criteria under section 36(2)(a) or 36(2)(aa) of the Migration Act 1958.