Rita Panahi: Albanese’s culpability in Direction 99 scandal may run deeper than first thought

Anthony Albanese’s culpability in the badly bungled Direction 99 debacle, which has seen hardened criminals including pedophiles and rapists dodge deportation, may run deeper than first thought.

Anthony Albanese’s culpability in the Direction 99 scandal may run deeper than first thought.

The Prime Minister’s hands are not clean. He is not only the leader of a government that has badly bungled this issue but it has now emerged that his department directly instructed the Department of Home Affairs to formulate a plan to stop the deportation of New Zealand criminals who had significant ties to Australia.

This intervention from the PM, some eight months before Direction 99 came into effect, was reportedly at the behest of then NZ Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern who had made similar requests to the previous Coalition government, and been rightly ignored.

Direction 99 is a ministerial order, issued by the comically incompetent immigration minister Andrew Giles, which has seen hardened criminals including pedophiles and rapists dodge deportation.

Andrew Giles during question time at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: Martin Ollman

The Albanese government has vowed to replace Direction 99 in the coming days and though Giles bears the greatest responsibility for this sorry mess, it’s apparent that Albanese’s department was also invested in allowing foreign born non-citizen criminals, specifically New Zealanders, to avoid deportation if they’d lived in Australia for many years.

Of course, Direction 99 isn’t limited to New Zealanders but its creation was motivated by a desire to appease Ardern after the PM met with her in mid-2022.

At the time Albanese claimed such a change was just a matter of common sense. “We will continue to deport people when appropriate,” Mr Albanese said in July, 2022.

“But we will have some common sense apply here. Where you have a circumstance where someone has lived their entire life effectively in Australia with no connection whatsoever to New Zealand, common sense should apply and we will act as friends.”

Call me crazy but there is no “common sense” in allowing non-citizen violent offenders guilty of the most heinous crimes to remain in Australia, whether they’re from NZ or any other corner of the world. If they’ve lived in Australia for many years they’ve had ample opportunity to seek citizenship.

The first obligation of any Australian prime minister and government is to act in the best interests of Australians, not to formulate policies to appease political allies in New Zealand.