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

I have received letters from the honourable Leader of the Opposition and from the honourable member for Solomon, proposing that definite matters of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion today. As required by standing order 46(d), I have selected the matter which, in my opinion, is the most urgent and important; that is, that proposed by the honourable Leader of the Opposition, namely:

The Prime Minister making Australians less safe and less secure.

I call upon those honourable members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. It's nice to win a vote in the chamber here, so thank you for that ruling, Mr Speaker. It's very generous and very apt, because this is an incredibly important point of business, this matter of public importance, for the chamber to contemplate.

Our country has a very reasonable expectation, long-held, that the leader of our country, the Prime Minister, in his first responsibility must make sure that every decision goes to keeping Australians safe. It is a fundamental principle; it shouldn't need to be debated in this chamber. And it's telling that the Prime Minister has raced out of the chamber already. But we know that the direction 99 issue is one of the Prime Minister's own making.

The Australian public watched the Prime Minister, in question time today, duck and weave but not answer the question. The fact is that what happened was that there were continuous representations from the then Prime Minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern, and from the High Commissioner from New Zealand at the time, who was making representations to me as minister, to the Prime Minister of the day, to my predecessors and to his predecessors, along these lines. We resisted and rejected the proposal by the New Zealand government, and for good reason because, if an Australian citizen in Germany today—even if that person had been born here and moved as an infant to Germany—was now a 35-year-old and committed some significant offence in Germany, the obligation, as it is on any origin country, is to take that person back as a matter of principle and a matter of international law.

What has happened here is the Prime Minister has decided that he will listen to the special pleadings of the New Zealand Prime Minister and allow people who had been charged with committing serious criminal offences in our country to stay here in our country. It's not without consequence—and the Prime Minister is an educated person. If you allow these serious criminals to stay in our country are they likely to commit offences again? Of course they are. And that is exactly what's happened. So has the Prime Minister kept our country and our people safe?

Opposition members: No.

No. Has he made our country less safe?

Opposition members: Yes.

Absolutely, he has. There's no question of that. But the Prime Minister doesn't have the guts to stand up here and to admit that they've made a mistake. What he neglected to say today was that they're going to revoke, or at least significantly refine, direction 99. Why is that needed if there's no problem here? Why is he backflipping on the position that he took and that he agreed with Jacinda Ardern on? Why is that happening?

As we know, because he has appointed somebody to the portfolio of immigration who doesn't believe in enforcing the rule of law, he knows that he has created an almighty mess. And putting the political points and the rest of the debate to one side, the most important point to remember here is that, behind every one of these cases—whether it's somebody who has committed a sexual offence against a young girl or against a child, whether it's a domestic violence incident or whether it's a serious drug importation—there is a human being and a victim behind each of these crimes. And in many cases there are multiple victims over a long period of time.

We should stand as one to condemn the Prime Minister and Minister Giles for this catastrophic mistake. When he's been asked in media interviews to apologise, Minister Giles flatly refuses to apologise to those victims. And the fact is that we have seen mistake after mistake from this minister. The 153 criminals were released not because the High Court had directed the minister to do so. That is a complete and utter concoction. There was one case, NZYQ, where the High Court, because the minister hadn't given the appropriate evidence—quite surprisingly, from a minister who doesn't believe in this area of law—and he failed to answer the questions put by the High Court, the High Court did find in relation to indefinite detention on NZYQ. The minister used that case, that judgement, to extrapolate out to 152 other cases to release those people into the community.

He came in here and he gave commitments that these people were going to be monitored—'They would be continuously monitored,' to quote his words directly. As it now turns out, as we know from that cohort, there are at least two murderers in the community without electronic monitoring. They didn't need to be in the community. We know that there are at least two murderers who are also exempt from curfews. How are you continuously monitoring somebody when they don't have an ankle bracelet, there is no curfew in place and there are no reporting conditions? What of the 39 sex offenders—part of the 153 that the minister released? We now know that 26 are no longer being electronically monitored and 27 also no longer have a curfew imposed. These people have committed additional offences against Australian citizens. These are people who should not be in our country. We have a great migration program in this country if it's properly managed.

Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It wasn't under you!

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We don't have a good migration program in this country if we have incompetent ministers.

Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You left a mess!

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Shouting from the Attorney-General—the input from the Attorney-General here, the first law officer, who stands up, talks over and shouts down women. That's what he does. That's exactly what he does, so I won't take any moral lecture from this man here, who can't control his own—

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Turn the mic off, please. Leader of the Opposition—

Honourable members interjecting—

Order! If order doesn't come to the House, it's the end of the MPI, okay? It's your call.

Opposition members interjecting—

Zaneta Mascarenhas (Swan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You should listen to the chair!

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Member for Swan, you are not helping right now. Members on my left, please! Okay. I will just sit and wait for a long, long time. Are we ready? Let's go.

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The first law officer of this country is not fit to hold the office, for multiple reasons, not least of which is his abuse of the shadow Attorney-General this week. He is a man that was pulled back by his staff in that meeting, and he knows exactly what I'm talking about. He can express all the outrage that he wants. If he wants to come to the dispatch box now and deny the allegation, he should do so. Let Hansard record that the Attorney-General sat there in silence and refused to come to the dispatch box to deny an allegation, because he knows that it's true. When you have people with the morals and the character of this individual here, no wonder the migration program is in complete disarray.

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Please, I don't think we'll have personal attacks.

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That's the reality of what we're doing.

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Please, Leader of the Opposition, you should direct your comments through me, as the chair. I've had enough of this personal attacking, slinging across the chamber from all sides. I want you to dial this down now and proceed in a way that befits the Australian parliament.

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Deputy Speaker, thank you for the call. I want to speak on behalf of those victims around the country who have fallen victim to these individuals released under direction 99. The reason that there is now an urgent review and a reversal of direction 99 is that the government has made a catastrophic mistake. To those victims, I say sorry. I really do, because, when you look at a circumstance where somebody has been sexually assaulted or where somebody has been murdered, those lives change forever, and the responsibility of this Prime Minister is to stand up to be strong, not weak; to stand up for what is right, not what is wrong; to stand up to make the decisions that are hard, not always easy. I want to say to those people that there is a better way to lead our country, but it's not under this Prime Minister. This government has let our country down. This Prime Minister made a decision because he was fanboying with the New Zealand Prime Minister at the time. He was completely and utterly besotted with Jacinda Arden and wanted to tell her what she wanted to hear. That's what happened here—nothing more, nothing less. For that, the Prime Minister should stand condemned.

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

I've got to say that I'm really shocked at the behaviour we just saw in the chamber here from someone who pretends to want to be the Prime Minister of this country. I would like to ask all of us to just elevate the tone of this debate a little bit. The Leader of the Opposition speaks, on the one hand, about real people in the community who he cares about and then, on the other, comes in and attempts a personal character assassination of the person who sits next to me, one of the most qualified people who has ever served as Attorney-General of this country.

It is unnecessary, it is unseemly and it disrespects every person who is in the gallery and every one of the people that we represent in this chamber. I would invite him to do better. We deserve better from the person who seeks to lead our country.

Now, the debate today is ostensibly about community safety, and that's the debate that I want to participate in. That's the debate that the Prime Minister and our government want to participate in, because we will happily compare our record any day of the week with the safety record of the Leader of the Opposition.

There is no doubt that we have heard today and we've heard many times before the Leader of the Opposition coming and say very angry and very aggressive things about his feelings about crime and community safety, but there is a problem. The problem is that there is a vast chasm between what the Leader of the Opposition says he cares about and what he did when he had the power to make the Australian community safer. I don't want this to be a 'he said, she said' debate between two politicians. I want to turn to the views of three eminent Australians who have written extensive reports about the state of the Department of Home Affairs which utterly prove that there is a complete disconnect between what the Leader of the Opposition said and what he did as Minister for Home Affairs.

The first I want to refer to is the Parkinson review, a landmark review into our immigration system, authored by Martin Parkinson, who was the Secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet under a Liberal government. The opposition leader spoke of an 'almighty mess'. He doesn't need to use those words, because that is essentially what the Martin Parkinson review told us about the state of the migration system left to our government. He said this was a system 'not fit for the delivery of a better future for our country'. He called the system 'fundamentally broken' and, most importantly, he made it abundantly clear who it was that broke the system. He said that the system was broken because of almost 'a decade of wilful neglect'. Who ran this system for most of the time over the last decade? It was the Leader of the Opposition.

Dr Parkinson told us that this it was going to require a 10-year rebuild to fix this system, and we have wasted no time. No matter what you may say about our government, one thing we are serious about getting on with is immigration reform, and we are undertaking masses of it to fix the mess left for us by the Leader of the Opposition.

I want to talk about the Nixon review, authored by Christine Nixon, a highly respected former police commissioner in Victoria. Christine Nixon looked at integrity problems in our migration system and she found that those integrity problems were so rife that organised crime actually viewed problems in our migration system as a key benefit to them operating in Australia. If any report shows the Leader of the Opposition up to be the complete fraud that he is, it is the Nixon review, because the Leader of the Opposition spent the better part of a decade talking about what a tough guy he was on the borders and the Nixon review showed us that, while he was speaking those words in the parliament, in the cabinet room he was cutting funding to the immigration department, cutting funding into the home affairs department and degrading immigration compliance in particular. In fact, while he was minister, we saw in our parliament a halving of the number of people who were conducting immigration compliance activities.

I want to tell you about one of the cases that Christine Nixon talked about in her review: the case of Binjun Xie, who was a convicted human trafficker. He was a Chinese triad leader who was known in the UK as 'The Hammer'. He walked into Australia while the Leader of the Opposition was running our migration system in 2014. He proceeded to set up organised crime rings in which women were trafficked into Australia and forced into prostitution. Can we agree that sexual slavery is one of the worst crimes known to humankind? The opposition leader oversaw the system that let this person into the country and allowed him to stay here while he had no basis to be here. I kicked him out and gave him a lifelong ban from ever returning to our country.

I have never heard the Leader of the Opposition utter a word of contrition for the role that he played in allowing these crimes to flourish. He seems to want people on this side of the chamber to express contrition about everything that goes wrong when migrants commit crimes in this country, but we never hear anything from those on the other side of the chamber.

I want to mention briefly the report done by Dennis Richardson—again, one of the most esteemed public servants ever to serve Australia. He did a report on home affairs contracting that showed that, while the Leader of the Opposition ran the home affairs department, hundreds of millions of dollars were taken from taxpayers all around our country and funnelled into companies which were likely committing bribery and trafficking in guns, drugs and human beans. All of this happened on the watch of the Leader of the Opposition. He paid no attention to it.

Now let me turn to one of the issues that has been prominent this week, and that is the release of people from detention. The opposition has focused, really, on nothing else for the last six months, nothing other than 153 people who were released from detention by order of the High Court. There has been supposed endless outrage from those opposite on the way in which this been handled. This exposes what is one of the most profound hypocrisies that I have seen in my time in politics, and that is the willingness of those opposite to set standards for others that they do not anywhere near meet themselves. From the reaction of those opposite, you would have to believe that while they were in government not a single convicted criminal was released from immigration detention. Am I right? I mean, they've gone on about nothing else for six months, nothing other than 153 people. Yet what we have learned in the last two days is that, while the Leader of the Opposition was in charge of this system, 1,298 convicted criminals were released from immigration detention. Of those, 102 were sex offenders. Sixty-four of those were child sex offenders. There were 40 domestic violence offenders and four people who were either murderers, alleged murderers or accessories to murder. If the opposition leader alleges that releasing, by order of the High Court, 153 people from immigration detention made the community less safe, what did it mean when 1,298 convicted criminals were released on his watch?

We've also heard some critiques of the monitoring system—the extensive monitoring system—that our government has set up. Within a number of weeks of the High Court decision we had created a preventive detention regime. We had put in place monitoring that had never existed before: curfews, ankle monitoring bracelets. Working with the Attorney-General we had put in place a $255 million investment in ensuring law enforcement could monitor these people. That was for 153 people that we released as a matter of law. So I have a question. There's been outrage this week from those opposite because some people in the NZYQ cohort are not wearing ankle monitoring bracelets. I would like to know: of the criminals and other dangerous individuals that were released on the Leader of the Opposition's watch, how many had ankle monitoring bracelets attached to their release? Obviously, it must have been all of them if there's outrage about some of the people in this cohort not having them. But, no, there were no people of that 1,298—not that I'm aware of, at least—that had any conditions at all attached to their release.

Those opposite speak of community safety. The cold, hard truth, the fact of this matter, is that it took our government to set up a regime which monitored people who might have been a danger in this situation. Those opposite let 1,298 people out of detention, none of whom were subject to any monitoring, and somehow it is us who are making the community less safe! It doesn't make sense, it is total hypocrisy, and it needs to be called out for what it is.

We have seen this week, in question time after question time, and indeed for the entirety of the six months since the NZYQ decision, a rolling drama of breathtaking hypocrisy from those opposite. But, of course, that is absolutely nothing new, because we have known about this hypocrisy, this vast chasm between who the opposition leader says he is and what he actually did, for some time. We know that the opposition leader has modelled himself as a tough guy on the border but, while minister, gutted funding for immigration compliance. He drove our migration system into a ditch and walked away. He oversaw an offshore processing system that funnelled hundreds of millions of dollars into guns and drug trafficking and human trafficking. Don't forget that while he was defence minister he oversaw projects that were a combined total of 97 years late on delivery.

The Leader of the Opposition speaks of accountability. I think it's time we saw some from him. The truth is that if he went anywhere near the level of accountability he sets for our government he would have resigned from this parliament a long time ago.

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

Before I address the MPI, I'll just give a little bit of advice to the government.

Government Members:

Government members interjecting—

Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We don't need your advice.

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Please! The member for Wannon has the call.

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

If you spent far less time focusing on the Leader of the Opposition and more time on keeping the Australian community safe, we would not be in this unholy mess. Concentrate on doing your job. It's a really important job. It's your No. 1 priority. It's called 'keeping the Australian community safe' and you are failing at it.

I hate these examples, but I think we just have to keep reminding the government of them so they will focus on their job. The latest report, which has come in this afternoon, is that owing to ministerial direction 99, a man who viciously attacked his pregnant partner in an attempt to kill his unborn child is the latest noncitizen to be spared under ministerial direction 99. We know that the government have admitted, by stealth, that they got this wrong, because—

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Excuse me, member for McEwen. It's really unhelpful.

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

We know that the government have admitted by stealth that they got this wrong because they are going to change ministerial direction 99. No-one on that side can deny it, not even the Minister for Home Affairs, who is leaving the chamber. They are going to change ministerial direction 99. The question needs to be asked: why? Why are they going to change ministerial direction 99? We need to hear that explained, either by the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs, by the Prime Minister or by the Minister for Home Affairs. But what we are getting is everyone on the government side running as far away as possible from ministerial direction 99 and attempting to own it—even the Prime Minister.

Here's a ministerial brief that is official, sensitive, legal privilege from the Department of Home Affairs. It went to the minister for immigration. In it, it says 'Key issues: at the recent Australia-New Zealand leaders meeting, the Prime Minister committed to a "commonsense" approach to the removal of New Zealand citizens long-term resident in Australia'. When we asked of the Prime Minister today whether he gave that commitment, whether that ministerial brief is accurate, the Prime Minister would not answer. He would not take responsibility for what he did at that leaders meeting. This will come back to haunt him, because there are other briefs and they will be found and they will come to light which will show that it was the Prime Minister who basically made the commitment that led to ministerial direction 99. The best thing the Prime Minister could do is come to this despatch box this afternoon and own it, because if you will not own the decisions that you make, if you will not take the responsibility for the decisions that you have undertaken then you are not fit to keep the Australian community safe, and that is your No. 1 priority as Prime Minister.

It is a sad, sad day when the Prime Minister, today here in question time, seeks to hide from his own responsibility as Prime Minister to keep the Australian— (Time expired)

Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm just going to give myself a moment to see what stage directions I need to give, whether the member for Wannon is going to leave stage left or stay and listen to my contribution. I note that the Leader of the Opposition began his contribution to the matter of public importance today—which I believe is a reference to this government keeping Australians safe—by giving us a commentary on the Prime Minister's steps as he left the chamber after question time. It then followed that the Leader of the Opposition immediately left the chamber as the Minister for Home Affairs took to the dispatch box to give her contribution on the matter of public importance raised by him. I watched him leave stage left. I just wonder how long the member for Wannon is going to stay to listen to my contribution about this government's diligent work, across two years, to keep Australians safe—across every portfolio of government. Side note: we know who the minister is in every portfolio of government, and there's only one of them in each.

During question time today, I was not surprised to see a question being asked of the Prime Minister about a brief that was not written by the Prime Minister's department or to the Prime Minister's department. I was not surprised that those opposite were confused about that, because, let's face it, when their former Prime Minister was the Prime Minister he was also minister for other things—therefore, briefs may have been cross-referenced across five portfolios.

Let's give some advice to the member for Wannon, who just spent 3½ minutes giving us some advice, about throwing stones in glass houses when it comes to safety. The Minister for Home Affairs went through the reports for the time of those opposite in government, in this specific area of immigration, and it's not a pretty sight. I have been wondering for some months why those opposite wanted to continue down this road of self-harm. It really is a wonder to me. I don't know how many directions have numbers. I don't know direction 99 from direction 79. A few of those opposite seem to understand ministerial directions, having left government so recently and having so many of them who were cabinet ministers still on those benches opposite.

That's why I wonder—oh, there goes the member for Wannon, leaving stage left. He is a former cabinet minister who understands ministerial directions, one would think. He's now the shadow minister for immigration, so he understands a few things. I assume he's read the report from the Nixon review. I assume he has read that Christine Nixon said:

Australia's visa system must be strengthened to resist organised crime syndicates, to ensure they don't prey upon Australia as an easy destination to conduct their exploitative and criminal business, and to protect those who are most vulnerable.

What would've inspired Christine Nixon to write those words? The review found that this government inherited from those opposite a broken immigration system, where abuse of Australia's visa system ran rampant. Abuses of sexual exploitation, human trafficking and other organised crime were running rampant in the Australian immigration system. The former Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, later the Minister for Home Affairs, who presided over that migration system that was used to facilitate some of the worst crimes in our society is now the Leader of the Opposition. And they pursue this argument around safety. As the Minister for Home Affairs said so clearly, 'They are obsessed with 150-something people released under High Court order—without an option for government but to obey that High Court order—while 1,300 criminals were released under their leader's watch.'

Angie Bell (Moncrieff, Liberal National Party, Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We're talking about weaknesses in the government, in this matter of public importance today. To me, the weakness seems to be management, and management comes from the top—from the boss.

When we're talking about weaknesses in this Prime Minister, I think it starts with letting down the Australian people on the economy. That's the first weakness that we've seen on display. There are many other weaknesses, and I will get to the border security weaknesses and the 'failure to keep our community safe' weaknesses, but it is about weaknesses and management because, after two years of 'hard Labor', every single Australian has been impacted directly by their failure to manage our economy and their weakness in managing it. We've had 12 interest rate increases and Australians are now staring down the barrel of a 13th. Small and family businesses are shaking in their boots because the price of groceries is up by 11 per cent, housing by 14 per cent, rents by 13 per cent and electricity by 20 per cent. All of these are weaknesses in the ability of the Prime Minister and the Treasurer to manage our economy and to help Australians.

There's a very long shopping list of weaknesses for this government. When it comes to the biggest and the most expensive failure of this government—and weakness of this Prime Minister—it is the abject failure of this government to do everything it can to keep Australians safe. Criminals have been let out of detention because of blunder after blunder by the minister for immigration, the home affairs minister and the Prime Minister. The buck stops with them. This immigration minister and his boss should be let go. They shouldn't be able to keep their jobs after letting hundreds of criminals out.

They don't actually know where they are. Only half of them are wearing ankle bracelets. They are putting Australians' lives at risk, and they have taken Australians lives. A serial rapist attacked 25 women and a child. Police said that there was some of the worst child abuse material in the world. A convicted rapist's drug fuelled attack drove his victim into a spiral of self-harm and homelessness. And now, just this afternoon, out there in our community, there are three more criminals spared by a direction 99 from this minister and from this weak Prime Minister. Two of them are child sex offenders who are out in our community, running around committing heinous crimes against Australians.

This is life and death. These situations that the Prime Minister and his hapless minister for immigration have delivered to the Australian people have caused harm to Australians due to the incompetence and the chaos of this government, and Australians can see through that. No-one who is responsible for these statistics, these lives, these crimes should keep their jobs. Enough is enough. This weak Prime Minister has to grow a spine and sack these ministers. The first and primary responsibility of our government is to keep our community safe. Australians know we have a weak Prime Minister at the helm who will not stand up for the Australian community. We have a hapless immigration minister and a failing home affairs minister who have failed and have rained down terror upon the Australian community, with heinous criminals—hundreds of them—running around the streets, and they have no idea of where at least half of them are.

Australians are sick and tired of this government. It's time that the Prime Minister stood up and, with regard to his ministers, made a stand and sacked both of them. It's a disgrace. Australians across our community are worried about their personal safety as they go about their daily business. As they go about dealing with their bills and all the rest of what they have to deal with, what are they thinking about in the back of their mind? They are thinking about their personal safety. They are thinking about those whom we are thinking about in the coalition: those who have lost their lives due to this failing immigration minister and this weak Prime Minister.

Daniel Mulino (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think that if there's one thing we can all agree on in this chamber it's that this matter raised today is a serious issue. Where we diverge is that I don't believe those opposite are treating the issue in a serious way, and I'll talk about that in three ways.

Firstly, I want to talk about the tone of the debate those opposite have engendered not just today in the MPI but more broadly across successive question times and in the broader discussion going on in the community. In particular I think it's the nature of the inflammatory way in which they've raised a number of the issues, the highly personalised way in which they've raised a number of the issues. When it's a serious and complicated issue and you're genuinely trying to grapple with that issue, I don't believe anybody could imagine that the best way to do that would be the way in which the Leader of the Opposition engaged in the debate at the beginning of this MPI. That's the first point I want to raise.

The second point—and this was touched on by the earlier two speakers on this side—is that, with a long-lasting and complex issue like migration, there are clearly long-lasting and systemic aspects to the issue. The second reason why I don't believe those opposite are engaging with this issue in a serious way is they continuously skirt the systemic nature of this issue. As the minister indicated, a number of reports on this issue—the Nixon report, the Richardson report, the Parkinson report—were all handed down by people respected across the political aisle, people who have contributed in our public service at the state and federal level over decades, who have indicated that the previous government failed on so many levels—whether it be the integrity of the system, whether it be the way in which the way the system is able to deal with organised crime, whether it be the way in which the system was underfunded year after year or the way in which the system didn't have the systems in place because of the way in which there was wilful neglect. Those systemic failures have created the context in which this government has inherited a system that is creaking under its own weight—a massive waiting list. It is impossible to discuss this system in any meaningful way unless one looks at it in that systemic way with the appropriate context.

The third reason why I believe those opposite aren't treating this issue with the seriousness it deserves is that I believe there is a patent disingenuousness to the way in which they raise issues. They come here constantly demanding apologies when they themselves, in the policies they enacted when in government and presumably in the policies they still hold, did the same or worse. As speakers on this side have indicated, 1,300 people with a criminal record were released when the current Leader of the Opposition was the minister for this portfolio. There is no introspection, no indication that he has any inclination to apologise for any of those cases. They come in here and give details of individual case after individual case. If that was the approach one wanted to take, clearly the same could be done with those 1,300 cases.

As the minister indicated, we have put in place a monitoring regime which has placed many of the people released in accordance with the High Court ruling under electronic monitoring and all of them under appropriate monitoring, as indicated in estimates, by our services. Those opposite had a system in place where nobody was under such monitoring, where no regime had been put in place. Yet they come in here and their hyperbole, their stunts, their political circus of a routine in this chamber is to constantly focus on the need for an apology when their own performance was clearly so much worse. They talk about the regime currently in place when they themselves voted for it, when it included a number of amendments that they themselves put—all of which were accepted. They come into this place with individual case after individual case under ministerial direction 99 when, quite clearly, under ministerial directions 90, 79 and 65 the very same criterion was in place.

This is a serious issue but those opposite aren't treating it seriously. That's sad for this chamber and sad for the way in which this issue is being discussed more broadly.

Michelle Landry (Capricornia, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Manufacturing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Labor's failures on community safety have reached an unacceptable level. The release of over 150 criminals into the community last year is a glaring example of this negligence. Among those released were child sex offenders and murderers—individuals who pose a significant threat to public safety. This situation arose because the government was unprepared for a High Court decision and did not have the necessary legislation ready to address the problem. The fallout from this lack of preparedness has been severe. At least 30 of these released criminals have subsequently been charged with new offences. This pattern of reoffending highlights the government's failure to protect the community's safety.

Recent developments have brought to life further issues within the system, dozens of non-citizen criminals have had their visa cancellations overturned by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. This group includes some of the most dangerous offenders, such as child rapists, repeat domestic violence perpetrators and drug traffickers. The root of this problem lies in a government decision known as direction 99. This policy decision undermines efforts to maintain public safety. The implications of these decisions are profound and troubling. This raises serious questions about the effectiveness of current policies and this government's commitment to ensuring the safety of its citizens. The consequences of these actions are already being felt, with continued criminal activities and new offences been committed.

In light of these issues, there is an urgent need for a thorough review and overhaul of the policies and practices that have led to these outcomes. This government has repeatedly demonstrated an alarming lack of accountability, choosing instead to shift blame onto others for its significant and dangerous errors. When 152 criminal noncitizens were irresponsibly released into the community, the government hastily pointed fingers at the High Court's decision. This blatant deflection of responsibility reveals a deep-seated unwillingness to acknowledge and address its critical role in this failure. By refusing to accept accountability, Labor has shown a disturbing disregard for the safety and wellbeing of Australian citizens.

In another shocking incident, a grandmother was allegedly assaulted in her own home by a detainee that had been released by this very government. Instead of owning up to this mistake, the Prime Minister criticised his own government appointed panel, which had determined that the alleged perpetrator did not need to wear an ankle monitor. He further deflected the blame onto Commonwealth prosecutors for not opposing bail for the detainee earlier in the year. This persistent blame-shifting is not just a failure of leadership but a direct betrayal of the government's duty to protect its citizens.

The government's pattern of evasion is further evidenced by its handling of a noncitizen charged with murder who was allowed to remain in the country due to ministerial direction. Instead of addressing the clear flaws in this directive, the Prime Minister disgracefully blamed the Administrative Appeals Tribunal judge for the decision. Similarly, when rapist noncitizens were permitted to stay in Australia under the same ministerial direction, the government shamelessly pointed fingers at the department, once again avoiding any direct responsibility for the policy. This repeated failure to take responsibility is not just negligent; it dangerously undermines the integrity of Australia's immigration and judicial system.

Keeping Australians safe is the foremost responsibility of the government. When the Leader of the Opposition was Minister for Home Affairs, he embodied this commitment by cancelling more than 6,300 visas of dangerous noncitizen criminals. In stark contrast, Labor has demonstrated an alarming inability to make the necessary decisions to protect our communities. If Labor invested as much time in focusing on keeping Australians safe as they do in criticising the Leader of the Opposition, we wouldn't be in this current mess. Their misplaced priorities have contributed significantly to the ongoing safety issues faced by the community. The Australian people won't forget the real reason behind this debate. The minister for immigration signed direction 99 and then failed to follow through on its implementation. This gross negligence has had severe consequences, and those responsible for such an oversight should not retain their positions.

The coalition agreed to intervene and fix the mess created by Labor, as we have consistently done in the past. We are committed to restoring trust and delivering the security and stability that every Australian deserves.

Tania Lawrence (Hasluck, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Just what does it take for people to feel unsafe? The member for Dickson's dog whistling and lack of moral fibre makes people feel unsafe. Immigration? As the Prime Minister told the opposition leader yesterday in question time, we have deported over 4,200 individuals from immigration detention. This isn't because we are meaner than those opposite. It's because we understand that a well-run immigration system will mean fewer delays. No-one did more damage to Australia's migration system than Peter Dutton.

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You need to use the member's title.

Tania Lawrence (Hasluck, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We have had to address delays across the whole immigration system since coming to office, because the opposition had run the immigration system into the ground. Systems within government departments that simply aren't working anymore—whether that's Immigration, the DVA or Services Australia—don't make people feel safer.

Let's talk more about the Leader of the Opposition's poor record on keeping Australia safe. He walked out on the apology. The member for Dickson could not bear to be in the same room as an historical apology was being given. Even a simple sorry was a step too far for the opposition leader. How safe do you think he made First Nations people feel? He claimed pregnant rape victims in Nauru were 'trying it on'. There is no context you can wrap around those words to make them okay—none. How safe do you think women felt after those vile, victim-blaming words? He accused a political opponent of using their disability as an excuse. The member for Dickson, worried about his re-election, said that Ali France was using her disability as an excuse for not moving into the electorate. How safe do you think that makes people with disability feel?

When you accuse gangs of particular nationalities of violence, that sows the seeds not just of unrest but also of racism—yes, racism. When you slide onto Sky News and talk about refugees being illiterate and innumerate and how they will take Australian jobs, you may well get a nod and a smile from the host and firm up a vote or two, but, again, it doesn't make anyone feel safe. All of these examples define the opposition leader, the member for Dickson, and, by extension, the coalition he leads—and they don't make people feel safe.

So what does make people feel safe? Good government. Let's talk about women's safety. Our investments in the recent budget bring the total funding for the National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children to $3.4 billion. Let's talk about rebuilding trust in government. We came to office with trust in government shredded to pieces by this coalition—Morrison's multiple ministries, a stacked AAT, robodebt, the list goes on. We have created the national Anti-Corruption Commission. We have the new Administrative Review Tribunal about to commence. We have made sure that no future Australian Prime Minister will carry additional powers in secret. And we are responding to the recommendations of a number of reports that outlined the maladministration of the coalition across multiple portfolio areas.

If you govern properly, trust will follow, but it is a fragile thing and must be continually maintained. Those opposite were never up to the task. Let's talk about cybersecurity. Scams are costing Australians billions of dollars every year. Scammers particularly target and prey upon the elderly. We have a Minister for Cyber Security in cabinet, and recent data shows that our actions since coming to office are already starting to make it harder for scammers to steal from Australians. We have also quadrupled funding for the eSafety Commissioner to help keep our children safe from online harm. This is how you make people feel safe.

Addressing climate change makes people feel safe. Getting proactive about emergency management makes people feel safe. That is what the Albanese government is doing. It's what the opposition never did. It is not rocket science, just good government.

The essential quality of good government is that it should have sound and intelligible principles, that it should pursue great national and social objectives with resoluteness, that it should be able to meet the storms that arise from time to time with a proper sense of navigation, that it should have cohesion in its own ranks and a strong sense of mutual loyalty.

That was Robert Menzies in 1961. It's something the coalition might want to revisit.

Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

At this moment, I want to focus on the No. 1 job of the Prime Minister and the government, in actually keeping Australians safe. After all, they are in government right now. When you talk to people out in the community, do they feel less safe and less secure? In the current circumstances, unfortunately, the answer is yes. It has been a dreadful, dangerous and damaging debacle that we've seen here. Unfortunately, the Australian people now know that the Prime Minister has been weak on this particular issue.

Labor is actually in government, and must take responsibility for the actions that they have chosen to take. We've seen a litany of terrible examples of the dreadful and very personal effects on Australians' lives. The tragic consequences have been laid bare in this House. We know that last year the government made a decision to release 153 criminals into the community, and they included sex offenders, child sex offenders, domestic violence perpetrators, drug traffickers and murderers. We do know that the Prime Minister then clearly put the then New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern above the safety and security of Australians by insisting on that direction 99, where those ties were given primary consideration by the AAT. No-one can deny that this has caused considerable harm; that is irrefutable. It caused harm and it was a decision of this Labor government and the Prime Minister.

These violent and obscene crimes, particularly those relating to young girls, by noncitizens whose visa cancellations were reversed as a result of this decision, should give every member in this House pause. Each one of those has a personal story behind them. We have seen so many of these serious offenders released. We saw a particular person who has been charged with the stabbing murder of a 22-year-old. Added to this is case after case of violent criminals, with appalling convictions, who have been allowed to stay in Australia by this government. That is irrefutable. On top of this, we now know that at least two murderers are in the community without electronic monitoring; two murderers are exempt from curfews; 26 sex offenders, including child sex offenders, are no longer electronically monitored; and 27 sex offenders, including child sex offenders, no longer have a curfew. I would be surprised if every single member of this chamber is not concerned about those people and what they may or may not do to people in our communities.

Each one of us has a community of people that could be affected by this. That's not constant monitoring by any stretch of anyone's imagination. Again, this is a weak Prime Minister who has put Australians at enormous risk. He should have acted well before this today. The Prime Minister and the Minister for Immigration knew the risks of section 99; they were warned. I cannot get over the 14-year-old girl who was raped by her stepfather when her mother was giving birth. What has that young girl got to live with from here on? What effect is that having on that little family? Of course, we have seen some really seriously traumatising attacks. We had a lovely lady in Western Australia, Nanette Simons, who was bashed so badly that her face should be one that sticks in the minds of everyone in this place when we're discussing this issue—the human face of that poor woman, who did not deserve the treatment that she got.

This is where we need the Prime Minister and government to actually have the courage and the strength to apologise to that woman. I know the Prime Minister came to WA—he was there at the time. I'm sure that Nanette Simons would have really appreciated a quiet call or a drop-in by the Prime Minister, where he actually said, 'It's a decision we made; we made the wrong decision and I apologise for what has happened to you.'

Zaneta Mascarenhas (Swan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I fully reject the statement put before the House today. The thing that I'd like to think we can agree about in this place is the truth that this government wants to put the safety of our citizens at the heart of our policies. I'm an engineer by trade and you'd think I'd know a little bit about safety. When we look at safety, we look at different aspects of it: physical safety, mental safety, financial safety and psychological safety. One of the things we're seeing in Australia at the moment is women being the targets and victims of horrific violence in our community, and it's deeply saddening and distressing. Women losing their lives to violence is something that I've spoken about before. It affects me and, I'd like to think, it affects all of us. That's why we need to keep on talking about it: because it is a national issue, and we need to do more, not less. It has to stop.

That's why this year, the small part I got to play was about launching a national inquiry into one of the forms of domestic violence: financial abuse. Eighty-five per cent of women who experience physical and domestic violence have also experienced financial abuse. I did this because I listen to people in my community: women who were exhausted—exhausted victims or survivors of violence, exhausted from hearing from their friends and families who were victims of abuse and violence. Ending violence against women and children is my responsibility, our responsibility, everyone's responsibility. We need to do this together, and everyone needs to play a part.

The Albanese government is looking for new ways to make women feel safe from the macro level right down to the grassroots through tangible fixes that have lingered under a neglectful coalition. I'll give you an example. Just the other day, the Minister for Sport, the member for Lilley, announced funding for new lighting at local sporting grounds in my electorate. This new lighting will improve safety for local sporting reserves and increase training and competition areas for female sports. It will help improve safety for women and girls. This is just one more thing that the Labor government is doing that the Liberal government failed to do. These issues were highlighted back in 2020 by the City of South Perth. It said that females felt unsafe to participate in sport and recreation due to poor lighting conditions, but what did the Liberals do? Nothing.

Fortunately, safety and women's safety are at the forefront of this government's mind. We know that it's a national issue. We want women to feel safe, we want them to be safe and we want them to be heard, whether they're playing sport or doing another activity that they love. We as parliamentarians can voice the experience of vulnerable people in our community. This is how we create change and create safer places for women. Doing nothing is not acceptable. Now is the right time to take action.

Funding in the budget handed down by the Albanese government brings our government's total investment to $3.4 billion for women's safety. This is what we're doing. Whether it's sporting grounds, parliamentary inquiries or a national budget that is investing in women's safety, this is what action looks like. This is what will make Australia safe. I know the Albanese government continues to look at the diversity of our public but also the diversity in the parliament to make sure that we make better policies, and that's something we didn't see in the previous parliaments.

We continue to do this, and I think we can make a real difference, but that diversity isn't just about gender; it's also about cultural backgrounds. The words that we say in this place make a significant impact, and we need to remember the impact that they have on different communities. Sometimes I think that we forget that one in three Australians are born overseas or have one parent born overseas. It's a pretty extraordinary number. One of the things that I sometimes see in this place is a term called 'othering', where we treat another group as an other and we create division. This could be a place that's unifying and continues to make Australia a better place, or we could have really divisive arguments that incite hate, division and fear.

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The discussion has now concluded.