Minister claims ‘immunity’ to keep deportation blacklist nations a mystery

Immigration Minister Andrew Giles is refusing to tell a parliamentary committee which nationalities the government will target under its proposed deportation powers by claiming public interest immunity over a series of questions from senators scrutinising the bill.

Despite being the final decision-maker under the legislation, the minister’s office also revealed he outsourced decisions over the visa conditions of former immigration detainees to departmental officials earlier this year.

Immigration Minister Andrew Giles has deferred all decisions over the visa conditions of former detainees to departmental officials.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Labor is facing mounting questions over its management of 153 people released after last year’s High Court ruling that indefinite detention was illegal, following allegations that one was involved in a home invasion last month.

On Monday, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton pressed for Giles and Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil to be sacked and vowed to “kick these people [detainees] out when they’ve caused harm against Australian citizens” if the Coalition was returned to government.

A Senate committee will on Tuesday deliver its report on the third tranche of government legislation in response to the High Court decision. It threatens jail time for people who do not co-operate with efforts to deport them and would ban visitors from countries whose governments refuse to accept the involuntary return of their citizens.

The legislation has sparked a backlash from diaspora communities, as well as Coalition and Greens senators, who asked the Home Affairs Department during their inquiry which countries the government would potentially ban and which nationalities in detention were not co-operating with authorities.

Department officials told the committee in written answers to questions that Giles had claimed public interest immunity over the details they were seeking. This prompted Greens senator David Shoebridge to accuse the minister of hiding behind government secrecy “because the truth will be damaging, not to Australia’s international relations, but to Labor’s support in these targeted communities”.

“Labor are refusing to say which communities they will target with these powers,” Shoebridge said.

Dutton accused the government of delegating responsibility to keep Australians safe to the unelected community protection board.

“Prime minister, the buck stops with you. If Minister Giles is not up to the task, sack him. If Minister O’Neil is not up to the task, sack her,” he said.

This masthead spoke to five Labor MPs including members of the cabinet, who asked not to be named, who suggested that neither minister was likely to be sacked.

“Everyone is speculating about their future, staffers and politicians, but I haven’t heard anything serious. Albo recognises that one of our advantages over the previous government is that sense of stability,” one MP said, adding that “one of his great strengths is loyalty”.

A second MP said that Giles had had a “rough trot” and had faced disproportionate criticism from the opposition, given he is the junior minister in the portfolio, and that “these are wicked problems that don’t have simple solutions”.

Last Friday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese criticised a government-appointed panel of experts’ recommendation to remove the ankle monitor of former detainee Majid Jamshidi Doukoshkan, 43, weeks before he is alleged to have committed the Perth home invasion with two other men.

According to senior Home Affairs officials during an estimates hearing on February 12, Giles – who has not spoken publicly about the alleged incident since last Tuesday – had been the sole decision-maker on whether people released from immigration detention had to wear ankle monitors and abide by curfews.

Home Affairs general counsel Clare Sharp told the February hearing that Giles had also delegated Australian Border Force commissioner Michael Outram to make visa decisions for the cohort. Until then, Giles had been the only one to do it.

In a statement released by Giles’ office last Friday night, a spokesperson said Giles delegated officials within Home Affairs to have the final say to keep him at “arm’s length” from sensitive decisions.

The spokesperson also took a veiled swipe at the expert community protection board by saying the government expected “they will always be mindful of community views and the objectives of government policy”.

After Albanese’s repeated assertions last week that the board was independent, O’Neil conceded on ABC Melbourne radio on Monday morning that it was part of the government, making recommendations to a delegate in the department.

“It is not appropriate nor legally sound for ministers to make that decision alone,” O’Neil said.

“And the reason I say that is because if you understand what the High Court was telling the parliament, it was saying, ‘Ministers, you do not have the power to punish, that’s the role of the courts’.”

The High Court found in November that it was punitive to detain people if there was no prospect of deporting them in the foreseeable future, however, made no finding on whether curfews or ankle monitors were punitive.

Several former detainees launched High Court proceedings in December and January alleging those measures were also punitive, and therefore unconstitutional, but the government withdrew the conditions in each case and the detainees settled.

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