Home Affairs MP Clare O’Neil apologises after arrests of released immigration detainees

Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil has said she is “sorry” that alleged crimes were committed by detainees released following the High Court’s indefinite immigration detention controversial ruling.

Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil has finally said she is “sorry” that alleged crimes have been committed by at least six detainees released following the High Court’s controversial ruling about indefinite immigration detention.

The apology comes after Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus last week unleashed on a female journalist who asked if the federal government owed the alleged victims an apology saying the question was “absurd”.

Ms O’Neil did not directly answer the question last Wednesday, instead saying the ministers’ jobs were to lawfully protect the community and that was what they were “focused on”.

Home Affairs MP Clare O'Neil. Picture: Martin Ollman

Six of the 148 recently released detainees have been arrested after committing offences including indecent assault, drug possession, theft, trespass, breaching curfew, parole and reporting conditions.

But in an exclusive interview with the Herald Sun on Sunday, asked if she had a message to the alleged victims, Ms O’Neil said: “I’m certainly sorry that (alleged) crimes have been committed by perpetrators who belong to this cohort of people and anyone else in the community.

“You can’t read a newspaper and hear about crimes being committed like this and not feel anything,” she told the Herald Sun.

“A lot of this question is coming from the underlying assumption that somehow the government released these people voluntarily and that’s just not true.

“Why would I do that? I had them all in detention and the High Court forced us to release them, and we had no choice but to follow that.”

Asked what her reaction was when she heard about the first report of a former detainee allegedly indecently assaulting a woman in Adelaide, Ms O’Neil said it was “distressing”.

“I don’t want anyone to be a victim of crime,” she said.

Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus at Parliament House. Picture: Martin Ollman

“I really need people to understand that the High Court decided to put these people on the street.

“We’re doing everything that we can within the law to protect the community.

“I feel … terrible every time anyone’s a victim of a crime, and particularly one where I can see … the background to it all.”

Afghan refugee Aliyawar Yawari, 65, was charged with two counts of indecent assault following the incident at a hotel in Pooraka.

The Albanese government last week passed laws to establish a preventive detention scheme to capture recently released detainees that are “serious offenders”, who pose an unacceptable risk of committing serious violent or sexual crimes.

Under the reforms, the Immigration Minister would be able to make an application to state supreme courts for a community safety order which could include detention or supervision.

Detainees must be non-citizens that were previously convicted of a serious violent or sexual offence punishable by at least seven years in jail.

Mr Dreyfus was last week forced to apologise to the journalist after he dismissed her apology question as “absurd” and said he would “not be apologising for upholding the law”.