Labor washes hands of detainee chaos

Labor says the Coalition must wear the consequences of parliament’s failure to pass legislation to better manage dangerous non-citizens

NDIS and Government Services Minister Bill Shorten. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Martin Ollman

Labor says the Coalition must wear the consequences of parliament’s failure to pass legislation this week to better manage dangerous non-citizens, including tough new requirements that would jail individuals who refused to co-operate with government attempts to return them home.

Former Labor leader Bill Shorten took aim at the Coalition for siding with the Greens to delay consideration of the legislation, despite Labor seeking to pass its legislation within a 36-hour window and claiming it was urgent.

“I’ve sat in parliament for the last three months, listened to Liberal hot air merchant after Liberal negative attack, saying Labor’s not doing enough,” Mr Shorten told Nine’s Today Show.

“And then when we do something they decide to, you know, do a bit of a go slow.”

“We just want to make sure that people who shouldn’t be in this country aren’t in this country. And if the Liberals want to make us jump through more hoops, I guess that’s part of the political rubbish which turns people off politics.”

The failure to pass the legislation could leave the government without a plan B if it loses a looming High Court case that could have more detainees released.

Labor has conceded the legislation was linked to a case being brought by an Iranian man known as ASF17 and who is challenging his detention.

But Victorian Liberal senator Jane Hume said on Friday that there was a “litany of chaos and incompetence on border security” and that the legislation was only “presented to the Coalition on Tuesday morning”.

“When we looked at that legislation, there was a print stamp on it that was dated four days prior,” she said. “So, Labor had had this legislation in their hands for four days before they gave it to the Coalition, and then told us it was urgent. Now the Senate’s job is scrutiny of legislation, and this legislation is controversial.”

The Department of Home Affairs revealed on Wednesday night that, of the 152 dangerous non-citizens released into the community following the High Court’s landmark NZYQ decision in November, 73 were not wearing electronic ankle bracelets.