‘Gutless’: Redetention laws passed in fiery late-night session of parliament

Laws to redetain the “worst of the worst” of a group of high-risk offenders released from immigration detention after a High Court ruling have been passed by parliament in a fiery late-night session.

Opposition frontbencher Dan Tehan called Labor “gutless” for shutting down debate on the issue, which has dominated Canberra since the High Court ruling last month.

Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, Minister for Home Affairs Clare O’Neil and Immigration Minister Andrew Giles during a press conference on Wednesday.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

The bill was approved by the House of Representatives about 10pm on Wednesday, hours after a fourth member of the released cohort was charged in Melbourne for allegedly failing to comply with a curfew and stealing luggage at Melbourne Airport.

The Australian Federal Police arrested and charged the 45-year-old man, Sudanese-born Abdel Moez Mohamed Elawad, at a Melbourne hotel on Wednesday. They will allege Elawad breached conditions of his visa on December 1 by failing to observe his residential curfew obligations and stealing luggage from an airport traveller who was asleep in the terminal.

Under changes made to the Migration Act on November 16 to create parole-like requirements for newly released detainees, the theft charge would carry a maximum penalty of up to 10 years’ imprisonment while failure to comply with the curfew carries a maximum penalty of five years’ imprisonment and a $93,900 fine.

Immigration Minister Andrew Giles, during the late-night parliamentary session, said the new power to lock up previous offenders on the basis of their ongoing reoffending risk would apply to the “worst of the worst” rather than all members of the released group.

After the House agreed to the bill in the form it was agreed to in the Senate, the Coalition attempted to put its own amendments to the legislation.

Leader of the House Tony Burke, however, sought to prohibit Tehan from doing so, an attempt which was blocked by Speaker Milton Dick. Burke then adjourned the parliament with the support of Greens MPs and Zali Steggall, thwarting further debate.

“Gutless, gutless, you don’t even want to debate it,” Tehan said. “What a shambles, what chaos, you don’t even want to debate the number one priority of any government: to keep the community safe. You’re hiding, it’s time the prime minister stood up.”

The fourth arrest comes a day after Emran Dad, 33, who once ran a child sex ring in Victoria, faced court after he contacted children online, and two days after violent sex offender Aliyawar Yawari faced an Adelaide magistrate on two charges of indecent assault. Another ex-detainee was charged with possessing cannabis.

Nearly a month after the court overturned the 2004 Al Kateb case and ruled it was illegal to indefinitely detain a person in immigration detention, the federal government has been scrambling to deliver a legislative fix that will send the worst of the released detainees back into custody. The cohort is made up of non-citizens who cannot be deported.

The court’s decision on November 8 was made in a case brought on behalf of a stateless Rohingya man who had served time for raping a child found that detainees could not be kept in indefinite immigration detention if they could not be deported.

The new laws were due to be passed by the House of Representatives on Thursday, but instead MPs were told on Tuesday that the matter would be introduced on Wednesday night.

Greens leader Adam Bandt said Labor was engaged in a “kneejerk reaction to a dishonest fear campaign run by Peter Dutton”, while crossbenchers slammed the government for the rush in which it wanted to pass the laws.

Under the new laws, a non-citizen would be re-detained if, after an application from the minister, a judge found with a high degree of probability that they posed an unacceptable risk of committing a serious violent or sexual offence.

Giles has repeatedly refused to say how many criminals could return to custody.

He said Commonwealth officials were working with the states and that “we’ve already begun applications to ensure that we can do all that we can as quickly as we can, noting that this will require detailed engagement with the states and possibly territories as well”.

“This proposed preventative detention regime would allow for a court to detain the worst of the worst offenders,” he said.

Giles was asked repeatedly how many of the 148 detainees released so far the government would try to lock up again but refused to answer the question. He also refused to say what their crimes were or how soon applications would be made to send them back into detention.

In addition to the preventative detention laws, the government is expecting on Thursday to pass separate laws that would strip terrorists of their dual Australian citizenship.

Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil defended the government’s handling of the High Court fallout during a press conference with Giles and Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, noting the government had no choice but to obey the court’s decision, and added that “if I had any legal power to re-detain all of these people, I would do it immediately”.

At that point, Dreyfus stepped in to reprimand Sky News reporter Olivia Caisley for asking if the government owed an apology to people affected by the reoffending former detainees.

“I will not be apologising for upholding the law. I will not be apologising for pursuing the rule of law and I will not be apologising for acting ...”

Caisley tried to interrupt with a follow-up question – a common practice for reporters – and Dreyfus snapped. “Do not interrupt! I will not be apologising ... for acting in accordance with a High Court decision. Your question is an absurd one,” he said.

O’Neil could then be heard muttering: “OK, I think we will move on here.”

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