‘Absolute disgrace’: Wild scenes as Greens Senator Hanson-Young unloads over crim release
A senator has issued a stern warning over a controversial bill put in place to deal with the release of 84 detainees, including convicted rapists and murderers.
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A senator has issued a cautious warning over the government’s rush to pass an amendment in the wake of a High Court decision which has released dozens of detainees, including convicted criminals.
The amendments which will permit the use of electronic monitoring ankle bracelets, strict curfews and threat of jail time after the High Court found ongoing detention to be unlawful if there was no prospect of them being deported.
While the amendments passed the senate just before 9pm, it will now be sent back to the House of Representatives for a vote on Thursday night.
So far, 84 people have been released into the community as a result of the decision, including convicted murderers, rapists, and child pedophiles.
Prior to the amendments passing through the Senator, senator Murray Watt acknowledged there was a “degree of constitutional risk” in the hurried and controversial legislation.
However, he said the alternative of doing nothing could put the community at risk.
“Our view was that the most important thing to do here was to pass legislation through the parliament, which provided the Australian people with the level of protection that they would expect from their governments … considering the background of some of the individuals who have been released,” he said.
“We believe the amendments that we’re proposing do satisfy those constitutional tests but until we receive the reasons from the High Court, there is obviously a level of constitutional risk around them.”
Senator Watt told Independent Senator David Pocock, the government fully expects “further legislative steps” will need to be taken once the High Court publicly discloses their reasoning.
‘Disgrace’: Wild scenes over crim release
While the government and the Coalition have in principle agreed to six amendments which would patch the issue put forward by the High Court ruling, the unlikely alliance has been criticised by the cross bench.
On Thursday afternoon, Senator Sarah Hanson Young unleashed on the government for failing to share the amendments with the cross bench, prior the discussions with the Coalition.
“What an absolute disgrace,” Senator Hanson Young yelled.
“We’ve had all morning to debate over how this particular bill that was rammed through the House would be managed and now we see the collusion of both the Labour Party and the Liberal Party cuddling up to ram through bills that this Senate still hasn’t even seen.
“So when Senator Birmingham and Senator Wong want to come in here and pretend that there is a working relationship, you’ve left out a big chunk of this chamber, the crossbench has not seen these amendments.”
The Greens do not support the measures and have slammed the push as Mr Albanese’s “Tampa moment”.
Senator Penny Wong said the outburst was “really taking advantage of the chamber” given the Greens would have a chance to ask questions later this afternoon.
“I know it is inconvenient to the government that there are other voices in this place, but we exist,” the Greens senator continued.
She was forced to withdraw several remarks against Mr Dutton, notably that he was “whipping” the government into the “exact path he wants”.
House passes Labor’s emergency laws on released detainees
The government has maintained that all of those people are on “appropriate” visas, after rushing through emergency legislation on Thursday to alleviate growing safety concerns among the community.
Immigration Minister Andrew Giles introduced the emergency legislation on Thursday that will criminalise bail breaches for those detainees impacted by the decision.
Those detainees will now be bound by curfews, ankle bracelets and mandatory reporting, and face five years behind bars for breaching, with an “equivalent penalty” for “repeated cases of non-compliance”.
Before the High Court’s decision, breaches of visas could be met with ongoing detention, but that is no longer possible for the detainees impacted.
Mr Giles said the government would continue to work through the implications of the High Court judgment.
“Further responses may be required once we have received the High Court’s reasons for decision,” he said.
Marles signals “in principle” agreement to Coalition amendments
The parliament is set to further strengthen the emergency legislation it is seeking to ram through on Thursday.
The emergency measures, introduced by the government on Thursday morning, came in response to a High Court decision last week that found ongoing detention to be unlawful.
As a result, 84 detainees have so far been released into the community.
The government’s Bill included provisions for ankle monitoring and curfews, and the Coalition said that while it would support the measures, they wanted it to be much stronger.
Acting Prime Minister Richard Marles in question time on Thursday thanked Opposition Leader Peter Dutton for the “spirit” in which he had engaged with the government on the legislation, and outlined the six amendments Labor was now considering.
“The first is in relation to making curfews. The second is requiring visa holders not to perform work or participate in any regular organised activity that involves contact with children,” Mr Marles said.
“The third is requiring visa holders to not go within 150m of a school, child care centre or daycare centre.
“Four, ensuring that each day of a breach of these conditions be treated as a separate offence.
“The fifth is that if they are as a visa holder who has been convicted of an offence involving violence or sexual assault, allowing the minister to put in place a no contact condition in respect of that individual.
“And the sixth is to establish mandatory minimum sentences in respect of those that breach this bill.”
Mr Marles said the government agrees with these amendments “in principle” and was now working to ensure the Bill passed the parliament completely before the end of the day.
Watt dodges questioning on draft legislation
Meanwhile in the Senate, the Opposition is trying to get answers about why the government did not start drafting legislation just in case the High Court ruled against indefinite detention.
Coalition Senator James Paterson asked when the government first became aware penalties for breaches of visa conditions would not be enforceable.
Murray Watt, representing the minister for home affairs, danced around the question.
“What matters here is that the government is taking action to fix this problem,” he said.
“The government first became aware of the High Court’s decision and the implication that flowed from it when the High Court delivered its decision.
“And as I say, and I have said before, they have not delivered their reasons yet, but notwithstanding that we have moved expeditiously to fix this issue.”
Senator Watt was asked in a follow-up question when the office of parliamentary counsel was first directed to draft legislation to address the issue.
Again, the frontbencher didn’t directly answer.
“I have personally heard both Minister Giles and Minister O’Neil say this week that the legal implications of this decision were being considered before a decision came down,” Mr Watt said.
“There were contingency plans being developed, and that is what led for instance to us imposing a number of conditions on the people that were released into the community extremely quickly.”
New laws to have “strictest possible conditions”: O’Neil
Earlier, Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil said the government has set “the strictest possible conditions” to keep the community safe.
Labor will seek to pass two bills called the Migration Amendment (Bridging Visa Conditions) bill and the Crimes and Other Legislation Amendment (Omnibus no 2) bill.
The urgent bill rush is in response to concerns that some of the individuals released into the community had been convicted of serious crimes, including murder and child sexual assault. It’s unknown how many of these individuals have committed crimes.
Liberal leader in the Senate, Simon Birmingham, confirmed the Coalition will assist Labor pass the Bill before the end of the day.
The legislation passed the House of Representatives on Thursday morning, and is due to be debated in the Senate after question time.
“We want to see it passed. We will pass it today, But we will scrutinise it and we reserve the right to propose amendments to it,” he said.
The government had hoped it could ram the legislation through the upper house by 2pm but ultimately agreed to a Coalition push to keep debate going until late Thursday evening.
Greens senator Nick McKim said the issue was a “confected emergency” and the threat of the released detainees had been “blown out of proportion”.
“What’s the Labor Party’s response? Predictably … collapse in a heap and let the opposition leader tickle their tummy,” he said.
The Greens spokesperson on Home Affairs warned this was the Prime Minister’s “Tampa moment”.
‘I had a lot of years’: Wong slips up in Senate QT
Even after 18 months on government benches, Foreign Minister Penny Wong can find herself forgetting she’s no longer in the political wilderness.
The Labor senate leader was letting Greens colleague Dorinda Cox know her question on protecting First Nations cultural heritage would have been better directed to her when she made the slip up.
“If the senator wishes to continue otherwise, can I indicate the opposition will give leave, the government will give leave,” Senator Wong said to laughter from both sides of the chamber.
“Oopsie,” Liberal senators shouted.
“I had a lot of years,” Senator Wong sighed as she shook her head, referring to the decade she spent on the opposition benches.
Chalmers hails fresh jobs numbers
Following the release of fresh unemployment figures, Treasurer Jim Chalmers welcomed the results in question time, claiming they were due to the government’s strong economic management.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the unemployment rate returned to 3.7 per cent last month, up from 3.6 per cent in September, the seasonally adjusted figures showed.
“55,000 new jobs were created in October, which means that 620,000 new jobs have been created under this Albanese Labor government,” Dr Chalmers said.
“More jobs have been created under this government than any other first-term government in history and we are only halfway through our term.”
When Labor came to government in May 2022, the jobless rate was 3.8 per cent. It has bounced between 3.4 to 3.7 per cent since then.
Dutton slams ‘absent Albo’
Earlier, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton accused the government of rushing through the legislation and slammed Mr Albanese – again – for being overseas instead of being present to deal with the issue.
“These are people who are serious, violent, offenders. These are people who are of the worst character and they are non citizens … These are people who do not deserve to live in our country,” Mr Dutton said.
“I think the Australian public is rightly outraged at a government that sees fit to let (these people) back out into the community.”
Mr Dutton also claimed the government had “taken a decision not to retain” the criminals when it was a High Court decision that the Commonwealth had no choice but to comply with.
He chastised the government for not having had draft legislation prepared ahead of the High Court’s decision.
‘Stoking pain’: Palestinian body stunt lashed
One of the politicians targeted by a stunt involving fake corpses outside parliamentary offices has warned protesters that such actions are “not the solution” to the crisis unfolding in the Middle East.
Victorian MP Peter Khalil on Thursday released a statement in response to the stunt outside his electorate office in Melbourne a day prior.
Police have launched investigations after protesters hung “Free Palestine” signs alongside a stack of red-painted fake corpses outside Mr Khalil’s office in Colburg on Wednesday morning.
The offices of Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles, Immigration Minister Andrew Giles and Government Services Minister Bill Shorten were also targeted.
Mr Khalil wrote that he understood people were in pain over the conflict in Gaza but urged those on “all sides of politics” to not use the issue for political gain.
“Frightening and intimidating my staff and leaving threatening messages on my office is not the solution to the humanitarian crisis and conflict in Gaza and Israel,” he wrote on X.
“Most of my staff members who are at the forefront of responding to these incidents are young, they are young, they are women, they are students.
“I call on all sides of politics not to stoke the pain and trauma being experienced by Australians in response to the crisis but instead work to bring people together.”
Albanese touches down in the US
Despite calls from the Coalition that he should have cancelled his trip to the US for APEC to instead deal with domestic issues, Anthony Albanese has landed in San Francisco.
In a brief press conference, the Prime Minister said the ongoing conflict in the Middle East between Israel and Hamas was set to be “a topic of discussion”.
“We have said very clearly that Israel has a right to defend itself and that how it defends itself matters as well, and we need to, I think, begin to have discussions about what happens in the future in that region in Gaza,” he said.
“We know that Hamas is not a potential partner for peace because of their own position but we need to have those discussions and clearly the international community will have a role to play.”
Infrastructure cuts a must after ‘economic vandalism’
Transport Minister Catherine King has confirmed 50 infrastructure projects will be cancelled nationally, blaming the Coalition for “economic vandalism”, in a major move set to alienate states and territories.
Ms King on Thursday announced a list of major rail and road projects would be axed under a federal overhaul of infrastructure spending.
One in ten future projects will be cut after an independent review found that “too many large-scale projects are receiving funding commitments without adequate planning.”
She said the review had found an estimated $33 billion in known cost pressures in the program, and that the figure was on track to blow out further.
“It is clear that the previous government deliberately set about announcing projects that did not have enough funding, and they knew could not be delivered,” she said.
“It can only be described as economic vandalism.”
“At least we know how to use a spreadsheet,” Rennick retorts
Spare a thought for accountants everywhere who may be suffering under the weight of the government’s reference to colour coded spreadsheets in the Senate.
Or at least, that’s what LNP Senator Gerard Rennick was thinking “as an accountant” when he pulled up frontbencher Murray Watt on Thursday afternoon.
“I am sick and tired of the reference to colour coded spreadsheets,” he yelled out.
Senator Watt was answering a dixer from Tony Sheldon about the infrastructure review which was released by the government earlier on Thursday when he referred to the now infamous sports rorts scandal.
“It’s become clear the previous government was addicted to announcements, colour-coded spreadsheets and neglected the hard work of building real infrastructure,” he said.
After being ordered to sit back down by Senate president Sue Lines, Senator Rennick continued.
“At least we know how to use a spreadsheet,” he said and questioned whether the government was using an “abacus”.
Dutton’s anti-Semitism rant ‘darkest hour’
Mr Dutton’s use of anti-Semitism to criticise Labor’s response to a major High Court ruling has been condemned by a senior minister who called yesterday’s Question Time the darkest performance he’s ever seen during his political career.
Industrial Relations Minister Tony Burke lashed Mr Dutton for using racial bigotry as a “political opportunity” after the Liberal leader linked a rise in reports of anti-Semitism to divisions in Labor
“Yesterday was one of the darkest moments I’ve seen in the house in my nearly 20 years here,” Mr Burke said.
“At a moment where both anti-Semitism and Islamophobia are experiencing levels of bigotry beyond anything that has been seen prior to October this year it is something where the role of leaders is to bring people together to call out all forms of bigotry.”
Speaking on Thursday, Labor MP Dai Lee said that Mr Dutton’s “inflammatory” use of language was counter-productive.
“Criminals who get released from prisons currently should have some kind of measures in place so people can track them,” she said.
“The High Court ruling took everybody by surprise and we need to get constitutional experts to find out how to address this. But I think we need to have a language that actually gets a solution, not to really inflame and instil fear in the community.”
Rise in bigotry ‘appalling’
Independent MP Allegra Spender, whose Sydney electorate has one of the biggest Jewish communities in Australia, said rising reports of anti-Semitism were “appalling.”
Speaking on Sky News the prominent Teal condemned the government’s “shouting match” during Question Time yesterday and said the community did not feel safe.
“The Jewish community is really scared,” she said.
“I think this issue is of real concern and having a shouting match yesterday was not the way to make the community feel like it’s being taken seriously.”
Macnamara MP Josh Burns, whose electorate includes Caulfield, the site of last Friday’s clash between Palestinian supporters and the Jewish community, said rates of anti-Semitism were “certainly the worst in my lifetime”.
He said he was concerned not just by the far right, but more so by the “smaller groups of people who clearly feel quite aggrieved by what’s going on in the world and are … visiting the Jewish community”.
“We have had very thorough concerning incidents of which some of which are with various police agencies at the moment,” he said.
Pocock’s industrial relations push
Meanwhile in the Senate, David Pocock has renewed a push for the parliament to consider a split version of the government’s industrial relations mega-Bill.
Kingmakers senators Pocock and Jacqui Lambie last week teamed up with the Coalition to successfully cut the omnibus Closing Loopholes Bill, to pass measures that benefits emergency workers, silicosis sufferers, and family violence victims and left behind more controversial reforms.
It was the second blow for the government after the Senate dashed its hope to have the legislation passed by Christmas, voting in September to send the Bill to an inquiry due to report back in February.
The split bill was voted down in the house where Labor has the numbers.
Senator Pocock moved a suspension of standing orders on Thursday to have a message resent to the House for MPS to “immediately consider” the Bills.
“The Senate has made its position clear … It’s time for the House of Representatives to take action,” he said.
Manager of Government Business in the Senate Katy Gallagher accused the pair of wasting the chamber’s time.
The motion was ultimately waved through after 30 minutes of debate.
Albo’s US meeting under fire
Northern Territory Senator Jacinta Price earlier fired up at Mr Albanese’s attendance at a major summit in the United States today.
“It is not one that can have any time to wait. This needs to be dealt with and dealt with immediately,“ she told Today
The Prime Minister’s decision to fly to San Francisco for a high-level Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) gathering has raised eyebrows with the Coalition arguing Mr Albanese should be focused on domestic issues.
US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping are due to attend APEC meetings on Thursday with leaders poised to discuss trade and rising global tensions.
Originally published as ‘Absolute disgrace’: Wild scenes as Greens Senator Hanson-Young unloads over crim release
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