James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Government Waste Reduction) Share this | Hansard source

I start by thoroughly agreeing with the member for Indi that the Migration Amendment Bill 2024 should go to a Senate committee. That's the position we have outlined. The lead speaker, the member for Wannon, made it clear that in principle we hope to support this bill if it indeed does what the government claims it will, but regrettably the government have made these claims before and this is a subsequent piece legislation they are bringing into this place.

It's nearly 12 months after the NZYQ decision was handed down last November and we still don't have a proper legislative framework in place to deal with dangerous, hardened criminals who are out there reoffending against Australians as we speak. The November decision of the High Court was thoroughly foreseen in comments by Justice Gleeson months earlier in the High Court which clearly foreshadowed that there was a risk that this decision would be made and that the High Court would go down this path on the current arrangements that are in place to keep detained dangerous people who have had their visas cancelled, some of them child sex offenders and rapists and all sorts of heinous criminals, who we don't want to this country, who don't deserve to be in this country, who don't follow the laws of this country and who are not safe to be on the streets of this country.

Regrettably, despite a great deal of warning via Justice Gleeson's commentary months before, the government was completely flat-footed and caught completely by surprise when that decision was handed down and we immediately had hundreds of people let out onto the streets. Regrettably, the most tragic episodes in this whole sorry saga of government incompetence are the Australian victims of the reoffending of these criminals because they were released by this government. The government have tried to claim that they had to do it because of the High Court decision. We happen to be debating a year later legislation that they're claiming will fix this problem. Why weren't we debating it the day this decision was handed down? Why wasn't the now sacked minister on his game, on his brief, and having his department properly preparing this legislation which now we are told will address the issues of releasing these criminals into Australian society? Why was this bill not ready to go the day on which that decision was handed down? It is because of the complete incompetence and uselessness of the now removed minister from that portfolio.

This is why we have got a great deal of scepticism and concern in just taking the government at their word on these matters when they say, 'This legislation is going to address these issues.' They've said that before in this House. I concede that other members have made the comment that there are legal scholars making commentary about the risk of this being struck down again by the High Court and having constitutional issues. The previous speaker mentioned that we shouldn't be passing legislation through this chamber when we think it has a risk of being unconstitutional, which is an excellent point and is why people shouldn't have supported the misinformation and disinformation bill going through this parliament. That is the piece of legislation that has the highest chance of being struck down by the High Court as being unconstitutional. But, thankfully, that looks like it has Buckley's and none of passing the Senate.

We would like to see a proper Senate inquiry into this legislation because we're sick of passing legislation that the government says is going to protect Australians that subsequently fails to do so. There have been innocent Australians that have been victims of these awful criminals that were let back out into the community because of this government's incompetence.

We don't want to see legislation that doesn't achieve what it claims to, which is the track record of this government in this area of policy, and again let down the people of this country and leave them unsafe. We don't want to look at any more victims on the front pages of newspapers with black and blue faces, because someone that shouldn't be out on the streets in the Australian community has offended against them, because this government can't keep these people where they should be—off the streets and away from innocent Australians.

We are not standing in the way of the passage of this bill through the House of Representatives, and, of course, hopefully—there's a first time for everything—the government is right this time when they say that this legislation will address the enormous loopholes that have opened up which are letting these awful criminals walk the streets and offend against innocent Australians. But we do need to test this through a Senate inquiry because we've been told all this before and have been let down by this government making commitments about legislation that was meant to achieve the protection of Australian citizens in our society but failed to do so.

We commend the second reading through the House. In the Senate, we will be supporting a full inquiry into this legislation to properly probe and understand that it is indeed going to do what the government claims it will.

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