Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Justice, Customs and Border Protection) Share this | Hansard source

The Attorney-General—and I will just get this on the record—is foolish enough to keep interjecting, saying the man is in detention. I am talking about the manner in which he was detained. There is a very big difference between being held in Inverbrackie, a low-security environment, and being held in Villawood, where apparently this person was moved once the media reported on the circumstances of his detention.

The question for ministers like the Attorney-General is: why would an accused Egyptian terrorist be held with such a low-security environment? I would really welcome the Attorney-General taking the opportunity in the parliament to respond to that. Why would you put somebody, an accused terrorist subject to an Interpol red notice, within a low-security detention environment? This is the question that the government has refused to answer. The question is: did the immigration minister even know that he had a person subject to such serious allegations or perhaps even convictions? We do not know. Did he even know that this person was held within such a low-security environment, because once the media report was published in the West Australian on the Saturday apparently the government then took action to move this person from Inverbrackie to Villawood? The question for ministers like the Attorney-General, who is supposed to actually protect Australia's national security, is: why would a person of such a character be placed within such a low-security environment? I hope that the Attorney-General takes the opportunity to answer that question to the Australian people in the parliament today.

The Sri Lankan who was accused of murdering his girlfriend was not held in low-security detention. He was released into community detention, again something that seems highly and totally inappropriate for somebody accused of such a serious crime. I wrote to the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship asking him why. The first question I posed to him—and a question that he has not answered—is: was he even aware that he had these three people within the detention network? I posed that question to him because he only took action after these cases appeared in the media. I also posed some other questions that he has so far refused to answer, even though he has responded to my letter, but unfortunately he has not responded to the questions that I put to him.

I asked when did he become aware that he was housing within the detention network people who have been accused of such serious crimes. What action had he taken to assure that appropriate security in these cases was available to manage the risk of flight in the community? When somebody is being released into community detention, clearly there are serious questions to be asked about managing that flight risk. I asked, for each case, when did the individuals arrive and in what boat? Where were they located now and what is the current status of their refugee assessment? Finally, how have these accusations been further investigated, by whom and what are the implications for the findings of their refugee assessments?

The minister did respond to my letter but he did not address any of these questions that have been put to him. They are serious questions on which he owes the Australian people an explanation as to what has gone on here. Sure, people are going to exploit the weaknesses of the Labor Party's failed border protection policies, but it raises very serious concerns when they are housed in such low-security detention environments. The minister by his letter to me and by his public comments has given every indication that he had absolutely no idea that this was happening until he was alerted by the West Australian newspaper. He was asked on 22 April, for example, on 6PR radio in Perth about the specific people by the radio commentator Howard Sattler. The minister said that he was going to get a brief on it, which really strikes me as somebody who had no idea what was going on within the detention network. Two days later, on Sky News, he was asked about these cases as well. His response was that he was going to examine the circumstances. This is clearly a case, as so often we see with this government, of them doing something well and truly after the horse has bolted.

The Australian people are owed an explanation as to what has gone on in all three of these cases. The most serious is that of the accused Egyptian terrorist who was the subject of an Interpol red notice. One of the reasons the government is struggling to cope with looking at the security background of the 40,000-odd people who have arrived here courtesy of a people smuggler is that they have astonishingly cut the budget that ASIO has to conduct these character assessments. In last year's budget, $6.9 million was cut out of the ASIO budget for them to conduct character assessments of people who have arrived here on illegal boats. That I think is an astonishing fact that goes to the heart of Labor's failure to protect national security in these instances. We now have an apparently light touch character assessment that does not even seem to establish the identity of a person before giving them what is essentially a tick and flick exercise. These are very serious allegations on which the government owes an explanation to the Australian people and I call on them to use this parliament to provide that explanation.

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