2111395 (Refugee)

The Administrative Appeals Tribunal reviewed a decision to refuse a protection visa to an applicant from Timor-Leste. The applicant sought to remain in Australia to earn money to resolve financial difficulties in his home country, specifically to build a house for his family and pay his siblings' school fees. The applicant stated he was not afraid to return to Timor-Leste and did not consider himself a refugee, explaining he applied for the visa to enable him to continue working in Australia.

The primary legal issue before the Tribunal was whether the applicant met the criteria for a protection visa under section 36 of the *Migration Act 1958* (Cth). This required determining if the applicant had a well-founded fear of persecution in Timor-Leste, or if Australia had other protection obligations towards him on complementary protection grounds. The Tribunal also considered evidence that the applicant's claims were identical to those made in 24 other protection visa applications, raising concerns about the genuineness and origin of his claims.

The Tribunal's reasoning focused on the applicant's own admissions that he did not fear persecution and had come to Australia for economic reasons. His stated intention was to earn money to resolve his financial situation and support his family, rather than to escape harm. The Tribunal noted the significant temporal proximity between the applicant's application for a temporary activity visa and his subsequent application for a protection visa, which raised doubts about the credibility of his claims of fearing persecution. Furthermore, the applicant's inability to provide a coherent explanation for the identical claims in multiple applications and his admission that his primary motivation for staying in Australia was to earn money, led the Tribunal to conclude that he did not satisfy the criteria for a protection visa.

Consequently, the Tribunal affirmed the delegate's decision not to grant the applicant a protection visa.