Ben joined RAILS in 2020 and was appointed Principal Solicitor in October 2025.
He leads our legal team in delivering justice and support to people across Queensland. But there’s more to Ben than his impressive legal expertise. In this Q&A, we get a glimpse into his motivations, experiences, and even what he enjoys outside of work — from tackling complex legal challenges to dreaming of life on the road in a campervan.
Let’s get to know Ben a little better.
Q1: What inspired you to work in refugee and immigration law?
I knew that I wanted to work in an area where the law can be used to help people. At the time, and still now, refugee and immigration law can be used to dramatically change people’s lives for the better – to give them safety, reunite them with family members or create pathways to a better life for their children. However, it can also be used to oppress people and discriminate. Working in a community legal centre allows me to not just help people navigate their way through existing laws but also to work towards make that law better so does more good and less harm.
Q2: Your work has taken you across Australia and even to Nauru. Can you share a defining experience?
Working in Nauru really highlighted for me the limits of law. Nauruan refugee law was written specifically for the people Australia transferred there because before that, Nauru had no need of refugee law. The legislation is possibly the best in the world – it closely mirrors the Refugee Convention, and UNHCR policies and guidelines. It is far better than Australia’s, which has all sorts of carve-outs and exceptions that have been introduced for political reasons. As a result, almost every asylum seeker was successful in getting refugee status. However, even though they had been accepted as refugees, there were no opportunities for them to move on with their lives and plan for the future, and they had no freedom to make choices about their lives – large or small. In those circumstances, their physical and mental health was decimated and if they had not eventually been allowed to leave there, they would not have survived. It really drove home for me the fact that a good system of laws to assess and determine refugee status is important, but it isn’t enough. Safety means more than protection from persecution. People need to also be able to build a new life, be reunited with their families, and have hope for the future.
Q3: How has refugee and immigration law changed over the years, and what does that mean for the people RAILS supports?
The politicisation of the process of seeking asylum since the 1990s has resulted in a body of refugee law that is extremely complex and specialised. This makes it much harder for people to navigate the system and become recognised as refugees without legal assistance. It also makes it harder for lawyers who are not specialists to practice in this area. This has led to the perfect storm we now have with large numbers of people needing assistance due to human rights abuses against minorities across the world, and relatively few lawyers in Australia who can provide that help.
Another change that’s happened over the last decade or so is Australia’s increased economic reliance on people with temporary visas. When temporary visas tie a visa holder to a particular employer or restrict their ability to choose where they live and work, it creates conditions of vulnerability which unscrupulous operators can take advantage of. We have seen this with student visas for a long time. More recently, the expansion of the Pacific Island Labour Mobility (PALM) Scheme has led to an influx of people seeking RAILS’ assistance, following mistreatment or discrimination in Australia.
There have also been times when governments have used the visa system well to provide pathways for people in crisis. We saw this when the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, and more recently with Ukraine and the Gaza conflict. These responses show that the flexibility and government control, which characterise Australia’s immigration system, can be used for good when the political will is there.
Q4: Your PhD explored “internal borders” and the concept of social citizenship. How does that influence your work today?
In 2014, when the Department of Home Affairs was created by amalgamating several government departments, they published a paper which said, “the border is not a line on the map. Our focus is on the border, in the sense of a complex continuum stretching ahead of and behind the border, including the physical border… The broad remit and focus of our new Department mean we will touch every part of Australian life”. To any lawyer with experience of the migration system, that statement was chilling. For a RAILS client waiting for their protection visa application to be processed the internal border might mean they’re forced to live in a regional area without mental health services, they can only work part-time even though their income isn’t enough to pay rent, their university sends them a visa cancellation warning if they’re absent from classes, or they can’t secure housing because real estate agents ask to see their visa and preference permanent residents or citizens or even that they can’t obtain insurance because of their visa. It means that for temporary residents in particular, immigration status can control virtually every aspect of their lives.
Social citizenship is the aspect of citizenship that is about connection to a people and place, as well as an identity – the sense of being ‘one of us’ or calling here home – and there are a lot of reasons why it isn’t necessarily connected to having the formal legal status of citizen. It’s important in the context of an internal border because temporary residents who have lived in Australia for a while are very often social citizens even though they can’t apply for formal Australian citizenship. At RAILS, most of our Asylum Seeker and Refugee Assistant program (ASRA) clients, for example, have lived in Australia for more than a decade, they have jobs, communities, families and a myriad of different connections that make them part of the Australian community even though to the border, they have that most precarious immigration status of all, a bridging visa. Social membership is the best concept I have found – either legal or non-legal – to subvert and challenge the power of the ever-expanding internal border.
Q5: What are you most proud of since joining RAILS?
The trauma-informed legal work that we provide for people who seek safety in Australia is the core of what we do at RAILS. When I started here in 2020, we had 7 or 8 lawyers and now we have about 26 and a significantly larger Intake team as well. Even with that increased size, we are only able to assist those in the most vulnerable situations, but it’s been really good to see the expansion because that means that more people are receiving the expert assistance that they need.
Over the last 18 months, we have also had the opportunity to advocate for better, fairer laws and processes for people seeking asylum and for temporary migrants who have experienced family violence in Australia. I look forward to RAILS continuing to contribute in this way and cementing its role as a respected voice in these areas.
Q6: How can people outside the legal profession support refugees and asylum seekers?
One of the most important things is to tell your local politicians that you welcome refugees and that you want Australia to keep its obligations towards them, including the right to seek asylum. To help with this, the Refugee Council of Australia has excellent resources including books, podcasts, films, statistics and a guide to keeping the government accountable.
Allies can also reach out to local church and community groups who provide material aid like donated furniture and kids clothing, or run English classes or social groups and make a donation, or even better, donate time to these groups and get to know people in their local community who are seeking asylum.
Q7: Finally, on a personal note, what do you enjoy outside of work?
I recently converted a van into a campervan – complete with plumbing, solar power and electricals. I dream of living in it and building a tiny house next!