Andrew Bragg (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Australian people are a very generous bunch of people. We have overseen one of the largest migration programs that any country has seen since the Second World War. We have been able to take in people from all across the globe. That's been possible because, whilst governments have run proper migration programs, they've also been prepared to protect the citizenry and to protect the existing Australian people as part of that process. The confidence that the Australian people have in the migration program is a very important thing. We have been a very successful and harmonious multicultural society—perhaps the most successful. The confidence that the community has that the government of the day is able to protect the Australian people is critical to maintaining that confidence that we want to see. We want to be a country which is open for business, and we want to be a country that is able to accept genuine refugees, as we have over the last 75 years in particular.

That is what is so disappointing about the way that the Migration Amendment (Bridging Visa Conditions) Bill 2023 has been managed. I've spent a lot of my contributions in this chamber talking about the economic mismanagement of this government. But this is another very disappointing failure in that it is maladministration writ large that you could know about something that was a possible risk to the community for more than six months. The government was on notice that it was possible that the High Court would say, 'That law is not valid, and therefore the people that have been held in detention will be released into the community, including people who have been convicted of very serious crimes.' Maintaining confidence is one thing, but it is also important that we don't have a situation where there are loopholes in our successful border protection regime. When I talk about border protection, I'm talking about a policy suite that sits alongside a successful migration program. These two things are interlinked.

Setting aside the risk about community confidence and community safety, there is a very large risk here that there could be a situation where a very large loophole could be opened up where stateless people could be artificially constructed and thereby use this loophole, which has been opened up by the law being struck down, which the government knew was a risk. The government knew about this for six months. That is something that we now need to consider and fix, because we cannot have holes in our border protection regime. If there are holes, they will be exploited by criminals, people smugglers and the like. And if there is a way for people to destroy their identification and to become stateless in some form, that cannot be a back door into our migration program, because Australia is a great country, it is a harmonious country, and there are millions of people around the world who would like to come here. But that needs to be done on a legal and orderly basis. One thing everyone in the coalition agrees with is that we need to manage our borders in accordance with our rules and our values, and we do that in conjunction with a generous humanitarian program and other migration programs.

This was not an unforeseeable risk. Six months ago the government was put on notice that this was going to be a potential problem, and last week the High Court found that the law was to be struck down. In the last week we've seen a process where 83 or 84 people have been released into the community—murderers, rapists and other criminals, released into the community—and that number could swell to 340. We could see 340 criminals released onto Australia's streets with no measure—and this is a key point—that that can be deployed to detain these people. There's no lawful way of detaining one of these people, because of the High Court's judgement. Right now, as it stands, we have a lawless position. And the 83 or 84 people—it could become 340—can effectively do what they like, and there is no capacity to re-detain these people. That is an unacceptable risk in a free society that believes in the rule of law and believes in orderly migration.

The Australian people would expect better from their government. The Australian people would think, okay, the government was put on notice six months ago that there was a problem with the law that may lead to the release of murderers and rapists. The Australian people are reasonable people, and they would have expected that the government would have a contingency plan in case the High Court did strike down the law—that on that afternoon or the next day the minister in the government would walk into the parliament and table the legislation that fixes the loophole and protects the citizens of Australia and gives the law enforcement authorities some capacity to detain people and protect the community. At the moment, unfortunately, our law enforcement agencies are not equipped with any legal power or jurisdiction to do anything in relation to this group of people.

The government have, belatedly, introduced a bill into this parliament that puts very rudimentary, very basic obligations that would apply to these people. One of them is an obligation to disclose if a club membership has been taken out. That is not a particularly onerous duty that is to be imposed onto these people. And there are a bunch of other very simple obligations. I regret to report to the Senate, as the other coalition members and senators have stated today, that, at just 17 pages, the bill needs to be amended to ensure that it meets the standard that the community would expect. The community would expect that there would be mandatory monitoring of criminals, that there would be mandatory monitoring of murderers and rapists who are in our community now, who have been released through a quirk in the law. It is hugely regrettable that the government have gone soft here in terms of the visa conditions that are to apply under the government's legislation. A 17-page bill is not a very large bill in the scheme of the work that this parliament does, and it is very troubling that this bill has taken almost a week to develop. As I said, it is a very weak bill.

That's why our amendments to impose mandatory sentences for serious breaches of visa conditions and to put in place mandatory electronic surveillance, monitoring and curfews are an entirely reasonable proposition, because that is what the community expects. The community would not expect there to be hardened criminals walking around the streets just because they have been subject to a quirk or loophole in the legal system. There's no situation in this country where an Australian citizen would expect to be sitting on a train next to a murderer or a rapist just because there was a loophole. They would expect that a murderer or a rapist would be serving a custodial sentence. That is the standard that the Australian people expect.

In my opinion, this will affect the confidence that the Australian people may have in the long-running and very successful migration program, because if the Australian people feel that the government is incapable of protecting their interests and their families then there will be a loss of confidence in the system. The other speakers have already catalogued the revolting cases that have been applied here in terms of some of the crimes that have been committed. I won't seek to detain us any longer, but it is hugely regrettable that it has taken the government so long to do this.

I have to say it reminds me a lot of the last time that Labor was the government of Australia. They were very poor when it came to economic management, and, in relation to the management of the migration system, I have to say that the last Labor government lost the confidence of the Australian people on issues like this. So this is a key test for the government. Will they be prepared to entertain some of the very reasonable suggestions that we make in our amendments? It's just not good enough that Australian people should be exposed to murderers and rapists in their day-to-day lives. The bill should be strengthened, and I urge the Senate to take this course of action.