Giles ‘obligations’ to foreign crims

Highly embarrassing as it is, Immigration Minister Andrew Giles’s admission that he falsely claimed criminals released from detention were being monitored by drones is not his most dangerous or serious debacle of the week so far. From a public safety perspective, the case of Kiwi man Glenn Taylor, who has been convicted 35 times in the 30 years since he arrived in Australia in 1993 from New Zealand, has the makings of a disaster or tragedy waiting to happen. Taylor’s convictions relate to threatening, stalking and intimidating women and assaulting police. In March last year, to the relief of his victims, he was locked up after death threats and harassment while on bail. He should have been deported to New Zealand then. But in January this year, under Mr Giles’s Direction 99, he was allowed to stay given his ties to Australia and a head injury.

However much Mr Giles tried to blame his department and the Administrative Appeals Tribunal for such decisions, the consequences of Direction 99 may not be as unintended as he would have Australians believe. To the contrary, it appears they were what he and the Albanese government presumably wanted. That was clear from his boast to refugee activists in November 2022 that Direction 99 would reflect “our obligations” to foreign-born criminals who had lived in Australia for most of their lives. So much for community safety. He told the refugee advocates the Coalition’s approach to the issue was “punitive”, Rhiannon Down reports.

After a long series of blunders dating back to the High Court’s NZYQ decision in November last year, including Mr Giles’s mishandling of Direction 99 and his attempt to blame his department – a ploy that underlines his lack of leadership and a breakdown of trust with the department – we have argued it is time for Mr Giles to go. That would not staunch the problem for the government, however. Anthony Albanese’s eagerness to accommodate New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern’s push for a more lenient approach to keeping New Zealand criminals with a long association with Australia on this side of the ditch was a foundation of the problem. Ms Ardern had lobbied Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton, as immigration minister, to no avail – to their credit. The change came after the Prime Minister signalled to Ms Ardern in July 2022 that Australia would likely ­soften its policy to deport criminals to New Zealand. After the government changed the policy last year to consider the length of time non-citizen criminals had spent in Australia before ­deciding to deport them, Mr Albanese said it was a ­“commonsense approach”.

As Down reports, footage has emerged of Mr Giles, two months before the introduction of Direction 99, telling the Refugee Council of Australia that he was having discussions with “our friends in New Zealand” over the creation of the new visa cancellation policy. His stated goal was to reduce the “number of people in immigration detention”, especially those from a refugee background, in contrast with the Coalition’s attitude. Mr Giles’s approach is in line with his background as an advocate and solicitor for asylum-seekers on the MV Tampa who tried to enter Australia under the Howard government in 2001. At the 2015 ALP national conference he and his factional mate, Mr Albanese, led the fight to reject the ­Coalition’s boat turnback policy under Operation Sovereign Borders.

For all the bumbling and bungling that have led to horrific consequences for the public, legitimate doubts remain – is this the softer policy many in Labor intended before the realities began to hit home?