James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

There is certainly a collective sense of shock in the Australian community, that 83 hardened criminals have been released from detention and are living amongst Australians—our families—and fraternising with young children, potentially, and doing God knows what, because we have a circumstance where people that should absolutely not be in our community now are. That's obviously due to a decision of the High Court, and no-one is disputing the jurisdiction of the High Court, and no-one has criticised the reality that the High Court interprets our legislation and that High Court decisions should be honoured.

We now have a situation, therefore, where the government has to respond to a decision of the court. And governments should do this as a matter of course. They do it all the time. There are many famous instances of significant unanticipated High Court decisions, where governments have had to, therefore, step in and legislate. But there is a great deal of confusion as to whether or not that is what the government will even be doing whatsoever.

We had a circumstance during a debate during question time when the Prime Minister made a comment in the heat of the argument—and maybe he thought he was being clever—referencing the recent referendum and put it on the coalition by saying that we made arguments that you can't 'out-legislate' the High Court. He was invoking that principle here and now in this instance. He was saying to the parliament that it won't be possible to legislate to overcome this decision of the High Court and to get these people out of the community and back into a custodial circumstance where they belong. That line is completely inconsistent with other members of his government, who have intimated that legislation is being worked on, that they're working through the issues of how there might be some kind of legislative solution to this decision that's been made, and that, at some point, the parliament will be asked to deal with this matter.

We have a prime minister saying that no legislation is possible and that you can't legislate against the High Court. We have a deputy prime minister saying this morning that they're looking into avenues for legislation. Then we have two ministers—an immigration minister and a home affairs minister—who, in their public commentary, would make you think that this is all about people feeling sorry for them and the situation they're in as ministers responsible for a matter that they should be taking responsibility for and are not. They're indicating that it's all someone else's fault and that we should feel sorry for them. I feel sorry for the communities who have now got living amongst them these 83 high-risk individuals when both sides agree it is dangerous for them to be out in the community.

We've got someone who's been convicted of raping a 10-year-old boy. We've got someone who's been convicted of murder. Quite rightly, he is not being sent back to the country where he's been convicted because he'll face the death penalty. I support the fact that we don't extradite people to jurisdictions with the death penalty, but I don't support a person who's been convicted of murdering someone living in my community or in any other Australian's community. If you think about how this would be handled, if it were an Australian citizen rather than people in this circumstance, it is very much the case that, in my home state of South Australia, a paedophile might have served their sentence, but they are still not released back into the community when it is clearly the case that they are still a danger to the community. State parliaments have been able to legislate control order regimes to ensure that these people aren't free to move amongst the community and be a threat or be at risk of reoffending.

We're going to find out at some point whether there is a legislative solution to this or not, when the government, ultimately, brings something into the parliament. That will be the real revelation. If the government brings something into the parliament on this matter, what we will know is that there is a solution but that they didn't take the first opportunity available to them to put it in place. We all deeply, deeply pray that none of these dangerous people do anything to innocent Australians in our community while we wait for the government to take action, but the reality is that the government should have been prepared for this potential circumstance. If we find out that we could have legislated but that that legislation has been delayed for months and months and months while these people are out in the community, that is on the head of the two ministers responsible and this government for failing to act expeditiously.

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