Labor cops grilling from Coalition over the reasons behind the release of so many detainees
Labor is under pressure to justify the release of 142 immigration detainees after a High Court ruling on one test case involving a convicted child sex offender.
NSW
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Labor is under pressure to justify the release of 142 immigration detainees after a High Court ruling on one test case involving a convicted child sex offender, as the Coalition argues there was no need to let so many people out.
The federal government remains adamant it was required by law to release the cohort — assessed from a broader group of 340 individuals deemed potentially impacted by the November 8 court ruling — but the Opposition wants to see the legal advice behind the move.
The Coalition has also demanded an apology from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese after several senior Labor MPs, including Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil, accused Opposition leader Peter Dutton of voting to “protect pedophiles”.
Mr Dutton said in fact one of his “life’s passions” was to ensure women and children were safe.
“I feel very genuinely and deeply about it,” he said.
Labor’s accusation stemmed from the Liberals’ decision to vote against laws making it a criminal offence for any of the released immigration detainees convicted of child sex offences to go near schools or childcare.
The Liberals argued they’d decided to wait for the full reasons behind the High Court case that overturned a 20-year precedent ending governments’ ability to indefinitely detain non-citizens it could not deport.
Those reasons have since prompted the Opposition to question if Labor prematurely released 142 detainees, including murderers, rapists and organised motorcycle gang members
Coalition home affairs spokesman James Paterson said the court’s reasons put “great weight” in the test case, a stateless Rohingya man known as NZYQ, having little chance of resettlement specifically due to the nature of his crime.
Mr Paterson said it could be inferred that the decision only apply to other non-citizen child sex offenders as a cohort no other country was ever likely to agree to take.
“It is up to the Albanese Government to tell Australians the basis upon which they then released in excess of 140 hardcore criminals who have no right tot be in Australia,” he said.
University of Sydney law professor Anne Twomey said if the government was confident a detainee fell into the same category as NZYQ they were “obliged by the law” to release them.
Prof Twomey said in cases where there was “uncertainty” about the circumstances being similar to the test case, it would be “quite legitimate to wait for the judgement to have that certainty resolved”.
She said continuing to unlawfully hold people in detention would have increased the amount of compensation the government might be required to pay.
Meanwhile the Coalition has also called for new laws that will allow governments to ask courts to strip convicted terrorists of their Australian citizenship must be strengthened to apply retrospectively to historic offenders.
Labor has proposed legislation paving the way for courts to strip citizenship from people convicted of terror, espionage and foreign interference offences in response to a different High Court ruling that struck down laws previously giving ministers that power.
The Coalition supports the measures, but will refer the bill to an inquiry in the hopes a constitutionally sound way can be found to cancel the Australian citizenship of historic offenders, such as Australia’s worst terrorist Abdul Nacer Benbrika, who was jailed for planning terror attacks on domestic targets.
Mr Paterson said this would potentially allow a government to have Benbrika deported to Algeria, where he is also a citizen, if he is released from prison.
Found: Police locate crim ‘missing’ since detention release
A man who evaded police and refused to wear an electronic monitor after being released from immigration detention has been found after being uncontactable in the community for three days.
The former detainee has now complied with stringent visa conditions, including wearing an ankle bracelet and following a curfew, but Labor and law agencies have refused to reveal where the man was located or any details of his criminal history.
Australian Border Force deputy commissioner of regional operations Vanessa Holben said she understood the community had been concerned while officers worked to “urgently resolve” the situation.
“I can assure everyone in the community that our officers have worked around the clock to make contact with the one affected individual in question, and we’re delighted to confirm this person has now been fitted with a monitoring device,” she said.
ABF confirmed of the 138 individuals required to wear an ankle monitor, only two people had not been fitted with a device.
One had a complex medical issue to resolve, and the other was continuing to refuse the monitor however their location remains known to authorities.
Coalition home affairs spokesman James Paterson said it was a “relief” the missing detainee had been located but Australians had a “right to know” how the “dangerous stuff up occurred” in the first place.
The absconded detainee saga only added to Labor’s political woes since the November 8 High Court ruling that prompted the release of 141 non-citizens, including convicted murderers and rapist.
Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil said the Labor was “moving quickly” to introduce a preventative detention regime that would allow the government to lock up released detainees deemed a risk to the community.
But Ms O’Neil was not able to confirm how many or on what grounds any of the 141 individuals might be re-detained.
‘Not good enough’: Labor under more pressure
Labor was earlier under pressure to reveal the last known location, criminal history and details of a released immigration detainee who refused to wear a mandatory ankle tracker and then disappeared.
Three days after Australian Border Force Commissioner Michael Outram confirmed the individual could not be contacted by authorities and had been referred to the Australian Federal Police, Coalition home affairs spokesman James Paterson said the public had a right to know who the person was and what risk they posed to the community.
“We’ve been given absolutely no information whatsoever,” Mr Paterson said.
“I don’t know who this person is, I don’t know where they’re from, I don’t know what crime they’ve committed, I don’t know what state they’re in, and nor does the public.
“I don’t think that’s good enough.
Mr Paterson said the government had “totally lacked transparency on this issue”.
“I think the public deserve better than that,” he said.
“I think the government should be leading here. They should be demonstrating that they are pulling out all stops to re-detain this person who has now breached the very serious visa conditions that the parliament imposed on them by refusing to wear an electronic bracelet.”
On Monday Mr Outram said the absconded individual, as well as three others who had refused ankle bracelets but were not missing, were “lower risk” in terms of the scale of offending among the broader cohort of released detainees, which included murderers and rapists.
The missing individual was one of 141 people set free following a November 8 High Court ruling that non-citizens could not be indefinitely detained simply because they could not be deported.
Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil was repeatedly asked about the individual across several media appearances on Wednesday morning, but said the case was now a matter for the police.
“That person’s been referred to the Australian Federal Police and I’ve got great confidence in the work that this brilliant organisation does to protect our community,” she told ABC News Breakfast.
“The Australian Federal Police and Australian Border Force have done an exceptional job at managing what has been quite a difficult thing for the Parliament to do.
“They’re doing a really good job of that, and I’ll leave the police to report back.”
Asked in another interview on potential law enforcement failures that lead to the individual absconding, Ms O’Neil said she was “not going to criticise police”.
“I would not do that … I stand by their performance, I stand by their integrity, we have referred this matter to police and that’s the end of the discussion,” she told ABC radio national.
PREVENTIVE MEASURES PLAN ON RELEASED DETAINEES
It comes as Ms O’Neil said the federal government was “moving quickly” to implement a preventive detention regime before parliament ends next week, three weeks after the High Court ruling triggered the release of 141 non-citizens
Sex offenders and violent criminals deemed a risk to the community will be locked up again after being released by the High Court under planned new “tough” preventive measures from Labor, she said.
“The safety of Australian citizens is our utmost priority,” she said.
Labor’s response followed the High Court publishing the reasons behind its November 8 ruling that a Rohingya man convicted of child sex offences, but unable to be deported, could not be indefinitely held in immigration detention by the government.
In a unanimous decision, the court ruled detention was unconstitutional from the moment it was clear there were no avenues to remove a non-citizen from the country “in the reasonably foreseeable future”.
But the court said release from detention did not grant asylum seekers the right to remain in Australia, noting any could be deported or resettled in another country if their situation changed.
The court also left the door open for individuals convicted of serious crimes to be re-detained if they presented “an unacceptable risk of reoffending”.
Mr Paterson said the court reasons “endorsed” the Coalition’s calls to impose preventive detention on the “very high risk offenders”.
Mr Paterson said Labor should have the legislation ready to pass immediately.
Four of the released detainees have refused electronic ankle bracelet monitoring imposed under emergency laws passed earlier this month, including the individual who police were unable to contact on Monday.
Immigration Minister Andrew Giles would not confirm if that detainee had been located when asked in Question Time on Tuesday afternoon.
“The Australian community should be assured that all efforts, co-ordinated under Operation Aegis, are made to track down this individual,” he said.
The four detainees were referred the Australian Federal Police, who declined to comment on their investigations.
Asked if agencies would provide the names and images of the released detainees, an Australian Border Force spokeswoman said it was not possible under the Privacy Act 1998.
Constitutional law expert and UNSW Professor George Williams said the court’s reasons made it clear any preventive detention orders must be applied “case-by-case” rather than to the entire cohort.
“These people can’t be detained where there’s no real prospect of removal (from Australia) unless it’s on some other ground … such as ongoing detention if you’re a sex offender and you’re dangerous,” he said.
Prof Williams said detaining people based on an ongoing risk of sex offending or organised crime was moving into states’ jurisdiction.
He said the court’s reasons could “encourage” challenges to the Albanese Government’s new emergency laws monitoring the cohort.
“It’s not strictly detention, and the Commonwealth might argue that, but once you’ve got potential curfews restricting movement you are getting into ground that gets constitutionally difficult,” he said.
The convicted criminals released by the High Court had all completed their prison sentences, and Prof Williams said the “bottom line” of the ruling was that governments “can’t detain people indefinitely” simply because there was no way of deporting them.
Two Sydney sisters have been left “terrified” after this week learning the man who murdered their mother and tried to destroy her body in a vat of acid was released on Friday as a result of the High Court ruling.
Serrah and Bianca Katz have been informed their former stepfather Tony Kellisar was freed 25 years after he killed their mother, Svetlana Podgoyetsky, in Melbourne.
Andrew Katz, who later adopted Serrah and Bianca, said the women were extremely distressed by news of Kellisar’s release.
“The thought that this guy is roaming free and probably might end up here in Sydney, has the girls terrified,” he said.
“We just need this government, the Solicitor-General, whoever it takes to find a way to amend the law and get this situation dealt with.”
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