Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I am coming to my question.

The TEMPORARY CHAIRMAN: No, if you could come to your question.

I am coming to my question, but it is a reasonable response to make to the Attorney that that answer is grossly unsatisfactory and in fact answered a question that was not put by me in any way, because I did not talk about infallibility; I talked about minimising risk of a miscarriage or of punitive action being applied. That is what I was talking about: minimising the risk, not infallibility.

I am not going to drop any names and I certainly do not want to try to compete with you. I am sure you know more judges than I do, Attorney, but I do know a couple of judges and I know an awful lot of lawyers, and you are right: none of them would consider themselves to be infallible, just as none of the ministers I have ever met, including myself, would consider themselves to be infallible either. So that is, I guess, a distraction from the real issue at hand here, with the greatest of respect, but I just wanted to put that rebuttal on the record.

Are you able to provide any advice around questions such as: once a notification is issued by the minister, how long ordinarily would it be before a person would be deported? Obviously, the context of this question is that the person is in Australia not on a visa from their other nationality—because we were talking about dual nationals here. They are in Australia as an Australian citizen, with no other rights to be in the country. Obviously, once the notice is issued consequences flow, as we have discussed, and presumably they would then be illegally in this country. In the ordinary course of events, are you able to offer any advice about how soon after the notice is issued a person would be deported? Also, is there any length of time beyond which they would not be capable of applying for the judicial review of the notice?