NZYQ fiasco: Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke yet to lodge single community protection order

Tony Burke has yet to lodge a community protection order against former immigration detainees with serious criminal convictions despite having a taskforce of 45 people for more than a year.

EXCLUSIVE: Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke has yet to lodge a single community protection order against former immigration detainees with serious criminal convictions despite having a dedicated taskforce of 45 people for more than a year.

It comes after this masthead revealed the release of former detainees, since dubbed the NZYQ cohort, has cost taxpayers more than $100m.

The taskforce was established almost immediately after a landmark High Court decision that ruled indefinite detention was unlawful in 2023, triggering the immediate release of about 150 detainees.

The number of detainees released has since increased to 291, including 14 murderers and attempted murderers and 90 sex offenders, and could rise as more detainees finish prison sentences and are released into the community.

Home Affairs deputy secretary Clare Sharp made the admission that the 45-strong team had not filed a single community protection order, which detain offenders before they can commit crimes, last week during an estimates hearing. Ms Sharp said the taskforce had been working through the applications and said the complexity of the cases was behind the delay.

Clare Sharp appears before the estimates hearing. Picture: NewsWire/Martin Ollman

“One of the most challenging aspects of putting together these cases is how fluid the cases themselves are – as in, the people are in the community and their facts are constantly changing around you,” she said.

In defending the delay, Ms Sharp said it had taken three years for the first application to be lodged in a similar high-risk terrorism offender scheme.

Shadow home affairs minister James Paterson said additional members of the NZYQ cohort were being released every month and efforts to deport the criminals could take months to resolve.

“In the meantime they are free in the community reoffending against Australians,” he said.

“The Albanese Labor government must show some strength and use every tool available to protect the community, including preventive detention orders.”

Senator James Paterson. Picture: NewsWire/Martin Ollman

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. Picture: NewsWire/John Gass

The Home Affairs department has spent more than $100 million on the NZYQ fiasco, including $73.7 million on operational costs, $24.3m on administration and $2.9m on government assistance including income support and healthcare assistance.

The overall cost to the taxpayer includes $18.6 million on lawyers and external counsel working on prevention and community orders.

Minister Burke said his priority was removing the NZYQ cohort members from Australia instead of detaining them again.

“The end point for these people is not to be detained in Australia – we want them out of the country,” he said.

“They breached the trust Australia places in anyone on a visa. I want them out.”

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke. Picture: ABC News

In February, the Albanese government struck a deal with the Nauru government to resettle three NZYQ cohort members, including a convicted murderer, for an undisclosed sum.

The deal was the first use of new laws passed in November that allow Australia to pay other countries to accept unlawful non-citizens.

The deportation has been delayed after the Human Rights Law Centre filed a challenge in the High Court of Australia arguing that the decision to cancel the former detainee’s protection visa was made unlawfully.

Originally published as NZYQ fiasco: Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke yet to lodge single community protection order