The face of Perth grandmother Ninette Simons must be a wake-up call on detainees

Ninette Simons, the victim of an assault and burglary in the Perth suburb of Girrawheen.

The sight of the bruised and bloodied face of Perth grandmother and cancer patient Ninette Simons, 73, who allegedly was attacked and robbed in her Perth home where her husband, Philip Simons, was tied up, must be a wake-up call for the Albanese government. One of three alleged perpetrators was Kuwait-born Majid Jamshidi Doukoshkan, 43, a freed immigration detainee who previously breached his curfew and was bailed two days ­before the alleged attack on the Simonses. A magistrate reportedly warned Doukoshkan that he was “on very thin ice”.

So, it would appear, are Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil and Immigration Minister Andrew Giles. Surely they recognise that their oversight of preventive detention, allowed under legislation passed in December, is indefensible. Anthony Albanese has expressed sympathy over the alleged assault on the Simonses but would not comment further because the matter was being investigated by police.

The Prime Minister and his ministers need to explain a straightforward point. That is, why has not a single preventive detention ­application been made to deal with any of the 152 immigration detainees – including murderers, rapists and pedophiles – who were released after the High Court ruled last year that indefinite detention was unlawful? In December, parliament passed preventive laws to allow stateless criminals and others who could not be deported to be re-detained for up to three years, subject to annual reviews by the immigration minister, if a Supreme Court judge was satisfied there was “a high degree of probability that the person poses an unacceptable risk of committing a serious violent or sexual offence”. No applications for such orders have been lodged, despite the government’s repeated ­assertions that legal work is ­advanced, Geoff Chambers and Paul Garvey reported on Tuesday. In a radio interview on Tuesday, Mr Giles repeated that point, claiming “everything possible” was being done to maintain safety in the community.

Last month, the government flagged the imminent release of a ­monthly Community Protection snapshot detailing visa conditions, including data on electronic monitoring and curfews, and updates on Community Protection Board assessments of detainees. But the first report has yet to appear. Since April 19, four men in Victoria and NSW have been charged with curfew ­breaches and failing to maintain monitoring devices. During the past week a 41-year-old Iranian-born man has appeared in Melbourne Magistrates Court over an alleged curfew breach and another former detainee, from Sudan, was charged with breaching his curfew conditions and failing to maintain a monitoring device.

Ms Simons will need time to recover from her brutal ordeal. But the government has no time to waste if further atrocities by former detainees are to be avoided.