Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Hansard source

This amendment bill, the Migration Amendment (Bridging Visa Conditions) Bill 2023, is too little too late. It bells the cat on the incomprehensible failure of this government to undertake its No. 1 priority, which is keeping the community safe. They have had over six months to get this right, and what we have seen is just incomprehensible—delays, mistruths and misleading of this parliament from the government.

Let's look at just this week alone. This is what the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs said on Monday:

… we were prepared for this outcome due to the case's significance.

He also said:

I don't forget you asked about the number of people who've been released. That number is 80, all of whom are on appropriate visa conditions.

This is what he said on Tuesday:

Our focus throughout—in anticipation of the decision and since—is on ensuring the safety of the Australian community. That includes looking at all options we have to ensure safety.

Then, on Wednesday, the Minister for Home Affairs said:

The first is that we are releasing people under the strictest possible visa conditions …

We now know that is not true, because right here before us now the government is acting to do what we were asking for on Monday.

The Minister for Home Affairs has just said that we weren't cooperating. That is an absolute nonsense. On Monday, we wrote to them. We didn't get a response to that letter until today. What they said to us was: 'Here's a piece of legislation. Take it or leave it.'

As we will demonstrate, there are amendments to this amendment that would strengthen this. It's not only that. The biggest failure is that they don't have before us today a new regime which would allow us to lock those detainees back up. That is the greatest failure. The Australian people need to know that the government has misled them and not acted in their best interests. It has not acted to keep them safe. We could be debating, in this chamber this morning, a preventive detention regime which would allow those people to be locked back up.

Why is this so serious? Thanks to some incredible reporting through the week, we have learned of the consequences of the decisions—or lack of decisions—that the government has made. We heard and read today about a domestic violence victim who has had to go to the police and ask: 'Please, what are the protections that I now have? What are the protections that are being put in place to protect me, because I have just found out the person who perpetrated domestic violence against me is now out in the community, free?' That person should not have to go through that. We have learnt through other reporting that in Queensland there was a lady who was raped who has now found out that the person who raped her is free in the community. She had to go and ask the police, 'What protections are being put in place to protect me?'

In our country, those people should not have to be going through that. This government should have undertaken this as their first priority and been focused on that first priority of keeping the community safe. In June last year, they knew that this decision was possible. As a matter of fact, they had a briefing in 2021, when they were in opposition, which showed that this decision was possible, and yet we are here now and they are rushing this amendment through the parliament. It is the greatest shame of all time.

As the Leader of the Opposition has said, where is the Prime Minister? Where is the Prime Minister when it comes to him undertaking his No. 1 priority? Jim Chalmers said of the Prime Minister—

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