Australian immigration crackdown plan as drug-runners, gangsters allowed to stay

One Nation senator Pauline Hanson has slammed a decision to allow non-citizen criminals to remain in Australia despite their dangerous pasts.

Exclusive: Firebrand Senator Pauline Hanson has blasted a “bleeding heart” tribunal for giving a wife killer, gangsters, drug-runners and DV thugs the green light to live in Australia this year.

News Corp Australia can reveal dozens of non-citizens and asylum-seekers ordered out of the country by Immigration Minister Alex Hawke have been given a second chance to stay in Australia by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT).

Dozens of non-citizens and asylum-seekers ordered out of the country by Immigration Minister Alex Hawke (pictured) have been given a second chance to stay in Australia. Picture: Mick Tsikas

Senator Hanson, the powerful One Nation crossbencher, today blasted the AAT decisions as “a series of appalling mistakes that are totally against the best interests of the Australian people.

“Countless Australian lives and families have been destroyed by the actions of these criminals and the minister has rightly ordered their deportation,’’ she told News Corp.

“But the bleeding hearts at the AAT want us to believe these criminals are the victims and they are actually people of good character.

“Wife bashers, drug runners, armed robbers and gangsters from other countries are not of good character and the Australian people want them gone.

“Their victims didn’t get a second chance and they don’t deserve one either.’’

Senator Pauline Hanson has blasted the AAT. Picture: Sam Mooy/Getty

Senator Hanson said some AAT members were “out of touch with reality and good sense’’.

“These decisions are just more proof they have no clue,’’ she said.

“The Government could start by getting rid of the AAT from this process and leaving the final decision with the Minister.

“And both sides of politics might think more carefully before appointing their political mates to the AAT and other bodies.”

Violent criminals allowed to stay in Australia this year include a British heroin addict and armed robber who carjacked a woman’s car after a jewellery heist in Sydney in 2019, a drug runner for a mafia boss, and a Sudanese gang leader who bashed commuters in Sydney.

Finding God, childhood trauma and the needs of Australian children are some of the reasons sympathetic AAT members overturned Home Affairs Department orders to cancel visas, deny citizenship or deport convicted criminals.

Mr Hawke said yesterday that AAT members “must give weight to serious crimes committed by visa holders’’.

“In light of some concerning decisions, I issued a ministerial direction making it abundantly clear that having an Australian visa is a privilege and not a right, and that those who commit serious crimes should face the full force of the law,’’ he told News Corp Australia.

A British heroin addict and armed robber who terrorised a woman and her children in a carjacking after a $1 million jewellery heist in Sydney in 2019 was granted approval to stay in Australia, despite his conviction for 70 crimes ranging from assault to stalking and drug possession.

AAT senior member Emeritus Professor Paul Fairall found that the violent criminal “is likely to experience severe challenges if removed from Australia to the United Kingdom’’.

Turkish man Amren Joskun will be allowed to apply for Australian citizenship despite running drugs in 2008 for jailed mafia boss Pasquale Barbaro.

Mr Joskun was jailed in 2012 after police nabbed him driving from Sydney to Melbourne with 270,000 ecstasy tablets and $119,000in cash, hidden in sports bags.

He told the AAT that he and his then wife were “suffering from serious ill-health and needed money’’.

Turkish man Amren Joskun will be allowed to apply for Australian citizenship despite running drugs.

The Immigration Department had knocked back the criminal’s citizenship application on character grounds but AAT senior member Chris Puplick – a former Liberal Party senator – decided Mr Joskun was “a person of good character’’ and should be given a “second chance’’.

A New Zealand-born man will also be allowed to stay, despite attempts to deport him for assault and repeated contraventions of family violence orders in Melbourne.

In his witness statement, the man told the tribunal that he had been raised in a strict Maori household, and that a “common feature of typical Samoan/Maori households (is) violence against women and children carried out by the provider of the family’’.

AAT senior member Chris Furnell found he failed the character test – but should stay in Australia to avoid “psychological harm’’ to his two young children, who are both in the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).

An AAT spokeswoman said the Immigration Minister had the power to overturn “certain character-related decisions”.

“Tribunal members must place themselves in the shoes of an original decision maker to take a fresh look at the relevant facts, law and policy to arrive at their own decision,” she said.

“It is often the case that additional material, not provided to the original decision maker, is provided to the AAT and relied upon in making a fresh decision on the merits.

“Tribunal members must make the legally correct decision or, where there is more than one legally correct decision, the preferable decision.”