The Albanese government has begun identifying cases to re-detain foreigners who pose a risk to community safety but is refusing to say how many people could potentially be locked up, as parliament passed laws on Wednesday night establishing a preventative detention regime.

As a 45-year-old man became the fourth ex-detainee to be charged with offences – in this case allegedly stealing luggage from a sleeping traveller at Melbourne Airport and breaching curfew – the government brought forward the legislation by a day in the lower house in an effort to quell the political firestorm.