Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party, Chairman of the Scrutiny of Government Waste Committee) Share this | Hansard source

The Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet obviously plays an extremely significant role across government activities. In the short time remaining, I am interested in asking the parliamentary secretary—he probably does not have full details—whether he can enlighten the parliament a bit more, given this is a very quickly moving story. Yesterday, at the end of question time, the Prime Minister announced that there would be a review or an inquiry into the events surrounding the placement of a convicted Egyptian Islamic jihadi terrorist in the low-detention facility in the Adelaide Hills for seven months, with the Department of Immigration and Citizenship knowingly having that person there, before the person was moved into high security at Villawood on 17 April, after the West Australian newspaper raised the issue.

As I said, the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet traditionally plays a cross-portfolio role in these sorts of issues and usually establishes a group which, from the public service side, leads inquiries, or the secretariat or support, and provides advice and so forth. I am wondering whether, at this stage, given the government has announced its review, it has worked through the details of what the department's commitment on assisting this review will be, to ensure that the full facts are revealed about why this convicted Islamic terrorist was put into the Inverbrackie facility, which the department of immigration knew, and no action was taken to move that person until this was made public. Given the revelations the minister for immigration made in this place during the week—that the minister was not advised, and then subsequently updated the parliament that the previous minister was advised—obviously the Prime Minister’s department will play an important role in bringing all of this together as a cross-portfolio function. Can the parliamentary secretary tell us, in the short time remaining, how much work has gone into preparing for the inquiry that was announced yesterday and how many resources will be allocated to it?

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