Andrew Giles has survived another question time as Immigration Minister and has only three more to live through this week to reach the relative peace of a fortnight’s break.
Fortunately for Giles, his survival has relied on Anthony Albanese’s determination not to give Peter Dutton a ministerial scalp and force a reshuffle rather than the Immigration Minister’s own ability not to make a mistake.
This is particularly the case when Giles’s lips are moving because when they are he is liable to be making a mistake.
And after making a mistake you can be assured that the next time his lips are moving he will be blaming someone for his error.
Just before Monday’s question time examination, Giles put out a statement declaring how tough he was by cancelling (that is re-cancelling) the visas of 30 convicted non-citizen criminals who had been given visas and avoided deportation more easily because of the Ministerial Direction 99 he drafted.
“Over the last week I have cancelled 30 visas of non-citizens with serious criminal histories, in the national interest,” the Immigration Minister said before repeating his boast in parliament.
But, when asked about his claims that the Australian Federal Police was using drones to monitor released convicted criminals, including murderers, rapists and child sex offenders, Giles’s lips moved and he had to concede his claim that police were “using drones” as part of the “continuous monitoring” was wrong.
Giles, of course, didn’t admit he had made a mistake or apologise to victims of crime or for misleading the public about upholding “community protection”.
Rather he blamed his department for the “information”. He has previously blamed his department for not telling him important things.
He has also sheeted blame home to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal and the Opposition Leader.
In this case it seems drones weren’t used to monitor those released or their accommodation near schools, but rather “aerial open-source and other imagery” was being used.
(Sounds a bit like someone used Google Maps, which the minister then misconstrued as a drone.)
Giles told parliament the continuous monitoring “can include electronic monitoring, curfews, financial reporting, spot checks, random home visits, as well as the other mandatory conditions which means the location of every individual is known”.
“As the government has consistently said, community safety is our No.1 priority and we will always act in the interest of Australians,” Giles said on Tuesday.
But rest easy. It was in a written statement and the minister’s lips weren’t moving.
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All that Albanese is saying points to a long campaign to leverage the prospect of better economic conditions, remove the distraction of domestic terror and regather momentum after a hard January.