James Paterson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Cyber Security) Share this | Hansard source

I'm sure Senator Pratt is not interjecting to question the testimony of a victim to the Guardian about her rapist who is now free to get around the community.

This bill could go much further, and it should go much further. There are provisions already in the high-risk terrorist offenders framework which go further and would have offered much more robust protection to Australians. They include preventative detention orders. They also include continuing detention orders, extended supervision orders and control orders. The government, despite the time it has had, despite the warning it has had from Justice Gleeson, has taken no action whatsoever to introduce such a regime. They say it's not possible to do so until the High Court hands down its ruling. Well, we're all awaiting the High Court's reasons for their ruling. We are all looking forward to reading that, but I don't think the Australian community can afford to wait until they do so. I don't think we can wait until January, February, March or whenever the court finalises its rulings and publishes them before we take action to protect Australians.

The government says that, if we introduced one of those regimes right now to protect the community, it itself could be vulnerable to constitutional challenge in the High Court. That may well be true. The High Court may eventually hear a case which eventually knocks out any regime that the parliament now introduces to protect Australians. Even if the High Court does eventually do that, in the meantime the Australian community would have had the benefit of the protection of that regime. But of course it's not certain that the High Court would do that. It is not certain that the High Court would rule that out. That the government is not even willing to take that risk to protect the community reflects very badly on them.

The Prime Minister's not here today. I am someone who very strongly supports the need for the Prime Minister to travel internationally in these times of heightened strategic competition. I don't take any issue with his attendance at important international fora—we need a seat at the table. But he should not have left the country until this matter was dealt with. He should have used the time he had while he was in the country to make sure that these robust protections for the community passed. He hasn't done so. That is a failure of leadership by the Prime Minister. That is an abdication of responsibility. He should not be jetting off while criminals remain free to roam the streets. I've been asked this week in the discussion about this issue, 'Why shouldn't these people who have been convicted, who have been incarcerated and who have been freed at the end of their sentences simply be free to return to the community like any Australian would be if they were convicted of an offence and completed their time in jail?' There's a very important fundamental difference, which I hope there is complete agreement about across the chamber today—perhaps not up the Greens' end of the chamber. An Australian citizen has an absolute right to be here in their country, whether they're convicted of a serious crime or not; there's nothing we can do about that. But a visitor, a guest, to this country has to meet a higher bar. The Migration Act says they have to meet the character provisions of the act.

I don't think, Senator McKim, that a rapist, a murderer or a child sex abuser meets the definition of 'good character'. It is a privilege to be in this country—if you are not a citizen of this country, it is not a right. If you commit those serious crimes, I think you violate that privilege, you lose that privilege, you are not entitled to be here, and you should be able to be deported. There are some very rare special cases where it is difficult to deport people, but the Australian community cannot be satisfied that this government has done all that it could to remove that threat to this community. It has not done everything it could to ensure that these offenders do not re-offend now that they have been admitted to the community.

We have seen some extremely distressing media coverage over the weekend about how this release has been handled. We remember Senator Watt assuring the chamber last week, when we asked him what would happen following the High Court case, that only the plaintiff, NZYQ, would be released into the community, and all others, including the 92 identified by the Solicitor-General in the High Court as being of risk, would not be released until the High Court handed down its reasons. Well, over the weekend, the government did exactly that. They began the process of releasing all of those offenders, now 84 in total. We read in the West Australian that dozens of them were simply dumped in a motel, free to go about whatever activities they want, party into the late hours of the evening, welcome guests to the motel in the early hours of the morning and have no meaningful restrictions imposed upon them. We heard from the immigration minister, Mr Giles, in the other place that every single one of these people when they were released into the community were released on a visa with binding conditions. We know those conditions were not binding, and we also know—courtesy of the evidence of David Mann, a lawyer for these people, that in fact they were initially released into the community without any visas at all and therefore no conditions at all, even the non-binding ones. They were only subsequently issued with visas which imposed those restrictions. This has been a catastrophic mishandling of the issue from the beginning.

It was on Monday this week that we first asked Senator Wong what the consequences would be if a person released into the community breached the conditions of their visa. It wasn't answered, so we asked again on Tuesday. It wasn't answered again, so we asked again on Wednesday, and finally we secured the admission from the minister that it was in fact true that these conditions imposed on the release of these people with their visas were non-binding and that the government would remedy that finally today with legislation.

When we get to the committee stage, I look forward to understanding why this legislation was not ready earlier. I look forward to understanding why the government weren't prepared in advance, given the warnings that the High Court clearly gave them months ago. Of course, the basic due diligence of any government is that, when any important national security or community safety legislation is being challenged in the High Court, particularly on a constitutional basis, there must be a backup plan. There must be a plan B. There must be a draft bill ready to go so that in the event that the government loses its case, which is always a possibility, it stands ready to remedy the consequences of that and protect the community.

Senator Cash and I will move a number of amendments when we get to the committee stage, because we don't believe this bill goes far enough or sufficiently protects the community. I really hope that the chamber and the government can support those amendments. We haven't had a lot of time to consider them, but nonetheless they have been drafted. We do think they are necessary and offer additional security and protection for the community, and we do hope that the government can sincerely consider these amendments.

The most sacred duty of any government is to protect the Australian people. It's our first responsibility as parliamentarians, and, for those who ever have the honour of being a minister, it is their first and most important duty. It's been very clear over the last week that the government has failed on that. They were not ready for this case, they did not act in time, and, now that they are acting, they are not acting enough. We are seeking to help them remedy that today to make sure that it is addressed more adequately and that the Australian community is protected from serious, violent noncitizen offenders now out on the streets.