Prime Minister Julia Gillard has rejected suggestions her government is resurrecting John Howard's temporary protection visa (TPV) policy.
Any detainee involved in criminal action will automatically fail the character test and be denied a permanent protection visa under changes to the Migration Act announced by Immigration Minister Chris Bowen on Tuesday.
The move follows riots on Christmas Island and Sydney's Villawood detention centre, where three detainees on Tuesday were in their seventh day of protest, lying on the roof, amid rain and without food.
Opponents say the move paves the way for the return of TPVs, which had refugees living under the threat of deportation.
Then Labor prime minister Kevin Rudd, Ms Gillard's predecessor, scrapped the TPVs, a measure that had been established by the previous Liberal government.
Ms Gillard on Tuesday said her government was not going to resurrect the temporary visas.
"TPVs were not about the conduct of the individual.
They are an automatic policy for everyone, an automatic policy that people could only qualify for a temporary visa," she told reporters in Beijing. "These are not the same thing."
Ms Gillard said the new policy was appropriate "so that people who commit offences whilst in immigration detention have those offences very clearly taken into account".
