Immigration Minister Andrew Giles told to fix direction 99 criminal visa disaster
Immigration Minister Andrew Giles has been told to put his skates on and issue new legal guidance to stop serious criminals staying in Australia.
National
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Embattled Immigration Minister Andrew Giles has been told to “put his skates on” and issue new legal guidance to replace his direction allowing dozens of serious criminals to remain in Australia.
More than a week since Labor conceded its controversial “direction 99” was not being interpreted as intended, the Coalition said it was taking a “ridiculous amount of time” to fix the mistake.
Dozens of non-citizens convicted of serious crimes have been spared deportation due to considerations under direction 99, which allowed greater weight to be placed on a person’s connection to Australia.
Despite a litany of visa issue failures and bungles by Mr Giles, Anthony Albanese said he was not considering a ministerial reshuffle.
The Prime Minister said the new guidance to replace direction 99 would be released “at an appropriate time” and the changes would make it “very clear that the first priority is the safety of the public”.
“People have been working on it … you won’t have that long to wait,” the PM said.
Mr Giles must announce changes on Friday to meet his self-imposed deadline of delivering a new directive “before the end of the week”.
Mr Giles’ office has also declined to reveal when the legal guidance would ultimately take effect after being introduced.
Previously direction 99 had a six-week transition period.
In the interim Mr Giles will have to personally intervene in any visa cancellations overturned by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal citing direction 99.
Coalition home affairs spokesman James Paterson said it was taking a “ridiculous amount of time” for Labor to fix the problem first identified two weeks ago.
“Andrew Giles needs to get his skates on, because every day the AAT is making decisions to overturn people’s visa cancellation and allowing them to stay in the community,” he said.
“And until he fixes direction 99, that’s going to continue.”
Mr Paterson said he was not “optimistic” the Opposition would be provided a draft of the new directive before it was issued.
“Frankly we’d like to see it because we have no confidence that this government would get this right,” he said.
“The government has shown no engagement on the issue other than denying their responsibility for it and trying to blame others.”
Dozens of convicted criminals have had visa cancellations overturned by the AAT citing direction 99, including Melbourne gangland figure Kevin Farrugia who is accused of having strong ties to convicted drug kingpin Tony Mokbel.
Mr Giles has so far cancelled 30 visas after reviewing cases permitted to stay in Australia by the AAT.
The direction 99 saga follows months of Coalition pressure on Mr Giles for his handling of the response to the NZYQ High Court decision that prompted the release of 153 immigration detainees.
Mr Giles was forced into an embarrassing walkback on Monday after incorrectly claiming drones were being used to monitor the NZYQ cohort.
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