Aussie taxpayers could foot the bill for compensation to refugee criminals released from detention after High Court ruling

Nat Barr has grilled a Labor minister over reports taxpayers will pay up to $180k a month to monitor refugee criminals released from detention.

Taxpayers are forking out $421,673 a year to lock up each refugee in detention, suggesting the Albanese Government may perversely end up saving money by releasing dangerous criminals into the community.

The stunning cost of the detention regime has been detailed to Parliament in the wake of a High Court decision that indefinite detention is unlawful.

It confirms that taxpayers are already paying $37 million a year to lock up the 84 refugees released this week.

And taxpayers could now be forced to pay convicted rapists and murderers compensation for being locked up after the High Court found the indefinite detention was unlawful.

Sunrise host Natalie Barr challenged Education Minister Jason Clare on the ongoing cost of releasing the detainees on Friday.

It followed reports that keeping all 84 under electronic monitoring could cost over $180,000 a month.

“Jason $180,000 every month. That’s the estimate on top of the welfare payments, the housing. Can you understand why taxpayers are not happy,” Barr asked the minister.

By contrast, the existing cost of keeping the 84 detainees locked up is $3 million a month - nearly twenty times the cost of electronic surveillance.

Nat Barr grilled Education Minister Jason Clare on the ongoing cost of releasing 84 criminal refugees from detention. Picture: Seven

Mr Clare said: “If we had our way, these people would still be locked up”. Photo by:NCA Newswire /Gaye Gerard

Mr Clare told Sunrise that the cost of electronic monitoring was not about money.

“Yeah, I get it. But this is not about money. This is about safety,’’ Mr Clare replied.

“If we had our way, these people would still be looked up. But that’s not an option. The High Court has ordered that these people be released. We had to do that.

“And that’s why we had to pass these laws to make sure that we keep Australians safe.”

The majority of those released this week were found to be genuine refugees, but later convicted of crimes prompting the government to cancel their visas.

The individuals are not in jail for their crimes - indeed many have completed a jail term - but are being held in immigration detention after completing their sentence because their visas were cancelled on character grounds.

As a result, some of the detainees had been held in immigration detention for years with no prospect of release because the government was unable to deport them - an outcome the High Court has found was unlawful.

Amid criticism of the cost to taxpayers of releasing the ex-crims, it has emerged that the cost of subjecting the majority to mandatory electronic surveillance is a fraction of the cost of locking them up under surveillance 365 days a year.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has come under fire for not having emergency legislation ready to go after the High Court ruling. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

The Home Affairs Department has confirmed that the “average annual administered operating cost of holding one person in detention in 2021-22 was $421,673.

According to a previous Commission of Audit report, keeping detainees in community detention – where the asylum seeker is put into community housing by the Department of Immigration – costs substantially less at just over $100,000 a year.

By far the cheapest option, however, is to allow asylum seekers to live in the community on a bridging visa (less than half the cost again of community detention).

Under existing law it is illegal for someone to remain in the community without a visa, but the High Court found it was also unlawful to lock them up without the prospect of release.

The High Court decision has immediate impact on up to 90 detainees who are being held in detention in similar circumstances

However, the fallout could impact another 340 refugees who have been held in detention for more than a year.

Some of these are bikies convicted of crimes who can’t be deported to their birthplace and may include people kept in detention after adverse security assessments.

The Albanese Government remains under fire for not having the emergency legislation ready to go before the High Court decision.

“Jason why did you just pass them yesterday? You, by your own admission, argued very strongly against them being released but then these laws were rushed through yesterday. Why not before?” Nat Barr said.

“You are putting a positive spin on this. This made your government look bad, didn’t it, because it made you guys look flat-footed because you didn’t pass these laws before it happened.

“You must have known it was a possibility. These murderers and rapists could have got out.”