Tribunal foils Immigration Minister attempt to kick sex creep taxi driver out of Australia

A TRIBUNAL has foiled Immigration Minister Peter Dutton’s attempt to kick a sex creep taxi driver out of Australia — the 4389th time it has overturned his visa decisions in the past year.

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton’s decisions have been foiled by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal 4389 times in the past year. Picture: Kym Smith

THE Administrative Appeals Tribunal has foiled Immigration Minister Peter Dutton’s attempt to kick sex creep taxi driver Jagdeep Singh out of Australia.

It is just one of the 4389 times the AAT has overturned Mr Dutton’s visa decisions in the past year.

Statistics seen by the Herald Sun reveal that of the 11,323 ministerial visa decisions reviewed by the AAT in the 12 months to April 2017, it ­rejected almost 39 per cent of them.

The AAT also overturned 37 per cent of the minister’s rulings on migration visas that were appealed against in 2015-16.

Mr Dutton cancelled Singh’s visa in September last year after he pleaded guilty in Victoria to indecently assaulting a female passenger.

But the AAT has since overturned the minister’s decision. It did so ­despite making a formal finding that Singh committed “a significant sexual offence involving a vulnerable member of the public whilst the applicant was engaged as a taxi driver”.

Senior AAT member Miriam Holmes gave Singh, 34, his visa back despite finding “it was apparent to the tribunal that the applicant showed no remorse in relation to the criminal offence”.

In her written decision outlining why she overturned the minister’s decision to cancel Singh’s visa, Ms Holmes said:

THE cancellation of the visa adversely affected Singh’s ability to manage his psychological condition with his treating psychologist;

SINGH’S wife had demonstrated depressive symptoms requiring anti-depression medication and would suffer emotional hardship if her husband’s visa was cancelled;

IF Singh’s visa was cancelled, he would become an “unlawful non-citizen” and might be liable for detention and possible removal from Australia; and

THE tribunal had regard to the degree of hardship that might be caused to Singh and his family if the visa was cancelled.

A spokesman for Mr Dutton said he was now considering what the next step in the Singh matter might be.

The Herald Sun last month revealed two other cases in which the AAT overturned the deportation orders of violent criminals.

Sadistic pervert Carl Stafford raped a Melbourne woman after the AAT decided not to allow the Immigration Department to send him back to his native New Zealand.

It did so despite Stafford, 42, having racked up 365 convictions over three decades of ­violent offending in Australia.

Just as Stafford returned to violent crime soon after the AAT gave him another chance, Melbourne Calabrian mafia boss Francesco Madafferi was dealing drugs within months of the AAT overturning the ­department’s decision to deport him to Italy.

Madafferi was later jailed for 10 years in Victoria following the world’s biggest ecstasy bust of 15 million pills in Melbourne in 2007.

AAT deputy president Alan Blow, QC, said the reasons behind his 2000 decision not to kick Madafferi out of Australia included the adverse impact it would have on his children and that Madafferi would be ­arrested and imprisoned if he was deported to Italy.

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