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

My question is to the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs. The Albanese government has released 149 hard-core criminals from immigration detention, including seven murderers and 37 sex offenders. On 18 November last year, the minister stated:

Ankle bracelets—electronic monitoring, I should say to be clear, is a mandatory requirement under the Bill that has come into effect today. That is across everyone in the affected cohort.

Can the minister explain why 36 of the 149 hard-core criminal he released are not wearing their mandatory ankle bracelets?

Andrew Giles (Scullin, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Wannon for the question. I presume he is familiar with the provisions of the bill which he voted for in the House, which required a decision to be made in respect of whether to impose the condition. That decision, as I have outlined in the House, is informed now by the advice of trusted professionals, including people like Graham Aston, former Victorian police commissioner and AFP deputy commissioner, in terms of managing community safety and determining whether or not a decision is made.

Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Home Affairs. The Richardson review found extensive misuse of public money in offshore processing under the last government. How is it possible that public money was misused in this way and who was responsible?

Clare O'Neil (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Home Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

One of the things that makes the member for Bruce's public service so distinctive is his continued focus on integrity, and I really want to thank him for his question. Yesterday, our government released a landmark report.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Members on my left! The minister will be given the courtesy of being heard in silence.

Clare O'Neil (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Home Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yesterday our government released a landmark report by Dennis Richardson AC, who I think everyone in this chamber would agree is a person of absolutely unimpeachable integrity. Our government commissioned that report in the face of genuine questions being raised about the integrity of contracts in our offshore processing system. Mr Richardson was asked to review the contracts and examine whether any wrongdoing had occurred.

The findings in this report are genuinely extraordinary. Mr Richardson found that, under the stewardship of the Leader of the Opposition, potentially hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars were funnelled into companies which were engaging in alleged criminal wrongdoing. Let me say that again: this is taxpayer dollars that your constituents and my constituents worked hard for, paid to the government in good faith, and under the Leader of the Opposition hundreds of millions of dollars of it were put towards companies which are suspected of drug smuggling, arms dealing, and money laundering. We know from Mr Richardson that massive profits were skimmed off these contracts.

The member for Bruce asked me how this is possible. That and other questions about this incredible report are rightly directed to the Leader of the Opposition, because this happened on his watch. He set up and oversaw a system that facilitated great harms to Australians and to people around the world. The questions that the Leader of the Opposition needs to come forward and answer are: what did he know about this and when; and why does it appear that, after almost a decade in positions of leadership, he never asked a single question about any of it? It is a reprehensible dereliction of duty.

What makes these questions so critical is what we see: an unbelievable gulf between who the Leader of the Opposition pretends to be and who he really is. This report exposes the Leader of the Opposition as an absolute fraud, someone who oversaw a system funnelling taxpayer dollars into drugs, guns and human trafficking, all while marketing himself as a tough guy on our borders.

Of course, this joins the Parkinson review and the Nixon review, two reports that showed that, for all the tough talk, the Leader of the Opposition drove our migration system into a ditch and walked away, leaving me and the immigration minister to clean up his mess. Don't forget, he was voted the worst health minister in living history. He ran a defence department that oversaw years of endless delays. He clearly can't run a government department. I'm not sure why he thinks that he should run our country.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.